Wander Beyond The Darkness
by Daedin
Summary: Two men are dragged down to the very bottom. Then from there, they dig. UPDATE: Next chapter is going to be delayed due to personal reasons.
1. Blinding Light, In The Night

**Blinding Light, In The Night.**

There's a lot of things that pissed off Heiwajima Shizuo, and the list of things was certainly numerous, as long as it was in the vicinity of the easily-irritated man with inhumanely strong strength, things would not turn out well.

The one _thing_ he hated most out of anything on this planet was the same annoying _thing_ sitting next to him at this very moment. The information broker known as Orihara Izaya.

Those two didn't go well together.

However, in this particular situation, inhumane strength did not stop several tranquilizer shots used for putting down larger-than-human animals, and it certainly didn't help that when Shizuo had woken up he had been dumped into the back of a truck along with some crates, his limbs feeling utterly useless as he tried lifting them up.

In the end, he decided to leave them be and dragged his annoyed face concealing anger over to the louse next to him known as 'Orihara Izaya,' someone Shizuo felt like he could use a wrap around the neck and some friendly neck snapping.

Shizuo spoke with a bitter distaste and with a sharp tone. "Louse, what the hell did you do _now_ , huh?"

Izaya had awaken to the hum of an engine, feeling his own head bounce against the hard floor. He rolled onto his back, feeling as though a cloud had settled across his mind. His vision was a downright _wonderful_ smear of colors, and the gruff voice snapping at him only added to the distaste brewing at the back of his throat.

"As conversational as always, Shizu-chan," he muttered, sitting up. His fingers searched his coat pockets for his omnipresent switchblade, only to come up empty. He ended up knotting his hand in his hair, trying to stem the headache springing up among his synapses. As he eyed the brute, he wondered - considering that they must've used tranquilizers with enough punch to knock out a gorilla, Shizuo seemed relatively fine.

As expected of the protozoan.

He stretched his arms above his head, shirt hiking up every so slightly to expose pale flesh, and worked out the kinks in his back. An easy smile tugged at his lips - a slightly softer version of his usual smirk, lacking the usual bite. The informant was aware that he was in a very _small_ area with a beast - the cage, so to speak; he wasn't as tempted to toe past the thin line between them with provocation, but that wouldn't stop him from trading sly insults that would no doubt slip past the brute's radar.

Languidly, he folded his legs underneath each other, resting a hand against his cheek. "Oh, I didn't plan this. It seems someone got cocky enough to play with the fortissimo of Ikebukuro," He chirped and steepled his fingers. "Someone other than myself, of course."

"Like hell I buy your bullshit, flea." He absent-mindedly tries to reach for a cigarette, but realizes that his limbs were _still_ limp from the tranquilizers.

A thought echoed his mind for a brief moment.

 _Annoying._

He disposed of the thought and his focus returned to the bastard who got him here in the first place.

"Whatever. As soon as I can feel my limbs again, I'll punch your throat in so I don't have to listen to your dumb shit." He scoffs, quite obviously displeased with the whole situation.

The situation of trust with Izaya was not the best one, and in this case, he nay even dare to put a metaphorical _inch_ of trust in Izaya, as that felt like he'd shake hands with the Devil to sell his soul.

His eyes turn once again to the front of the truck, wondering why there hasn't been a guard to come over and shut the two of them up.

Izaya spread out his hands in front of him, as if he was admiring the scenery. His expression soured almost imperceptibly - looks like he was off in his previous observation - before recovering. "Shizu-chan can't move? Let's hope this is temporary. I would be _very_ cross if they broke my toy without my permission."

He wiggled his hands in almost childlike delight. "Ne, Shizu-chan, I propose a truce. It would be a pity if we kill each other before they do, wouldn't it? Imagine how disappointed they would be. You were always one to think of others, after all."

His voice was smooth, betraying a slight edge of mocking disgust, though his mind was at work. He was mentally listing all the people who could have targeted him; in his line of work, kidnapping was to be expected. After all, his job _was_ selling people's secrets and as a result pissing them off.

In case you were wondering, _no,_ Izaya didn't plan on partnering up with the protozoan. He was simply using the other; that monster strength of his was bound to be useful. Swaying in tandem with the truck, he got to his feet, supporting a hand against the wall. His mind continued to throb, yet he bit down on the pain. Now was no time for his judgement to be clouded.

 _When was it … ? When did they knock me out? What was I doing then? Was it one of the groups Shiki-san asked me to check? It must be. Think, think, think … How far had we traveled? What direction are we going in?_

Facing away from Shizuo, he pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. There were no windows, the only faint source of light being the miniscule slat that could slide back and forth to reveal the front of the truck.

The offer nearly made Shizuo break into laughter - instead, he posed a grin instead.

"So now you want a _truce_ with me? Shit, the flea's bein' _real_ desperate here. Well, whatever, don't expect me to be buddy-buddy with you, since I still want to break at least _one_ body part of yours."

His eyes narrowed at the slat, maybe he could see through it?

…

Nah. Not happening.

He sighs, his glasses dropping very slightly.

 _Annoying._

There wasn't much that he could do now. His choice of movement was limited, the only thing he _could_ do was move his head- ah, wait, he felt a few finger tips twitching. There's progress, at least. Very slow and annoying progress; but progress nonetheless.

"Desperate?" Izaya snorted. "If anything, I'm being smart, conspiring with the dog." His smile widened. "But ah, I can't help but wonder if you've been house-trained enough to follow your owner's lead." Izaya shifted to the front of the truck, trying to tug the slat open. Predictably enough, it was glued shut.

"As for breaking my body, I wish you luck with that. You haven't ever been able to catch me before, and I _don't_ expect you to start now." The next moment, he was stiffening, the truck beginning to dip into a turn.

Shizuo's head turned to the roof, and he listened intently.

 _Tap tap tap tap tap taptaptaptap…_

Was that… rain? Seemed like the most likely thing. It wasn't winter yet, so it couldn't be snow or hail, so he had to have figured that it'd be rain.

"Huh. So that's how they got us out of Ikebukuro so easily. Damn."

Izaya glanced at the other from over his shoulder, eyes narrowing.

"Don't think too hard, Shizu-chan. A feat like that is difficult for you, I know; I should be applauding your victory. However, your brain frying is not on the agenda. All you need to do is sit there, lift heavy things, and look pretty." He tapped his chin once in mock-thought. "All three must be beyond your level; I shouldn't overestimate you."

Shizuo turned his head, again, to the louse. "God, you're so unbearable to be around, flea. I'm fucking shocked you had a secretary that didn't try to kill you because you were being such an obnoxious asshole. Tch."

Izaya frowned at the word 'Secretary.' _Namie-san? She must be celebrating with her beloved Seiji-kun._ He sighed to himself in a mixture of longing and contentedness. _Ah, such deliciously twisted love, as expected of my precious humans._

Shizuo looks down at his legs with an annoyed frown, then back to Izaya. "Oi, flea, you got your phone on you?"

At the suggestion, Izaya fished around in his pockets once more. The familiar weight of the sleek device was gone; he didn't miss that the first time around. However, there was something else there. His questing fingers closed around the object, and he pulled it out. It was a small square of paper, folded neatly down the center.

He flicked it open, eyebrow raising at the comment written in precise, swirling script.

" _Enjoying your quality time? Just wait. There's more to come."_

Izaya read the words aloud, pouting slightly at he finished. There was no name, no initial, not any way to link it back to the writer. The most he could tell from this was that the perpetrator, or perpetrator _s_ , had an interesting form of humor.

By interesting he meant disgusting.

"Eh? So the guy that got us here's an asshole too. That'll make it easier to punch him in his face once we break outta here. Don't think we'll be out of here for a while, though." Shizuo does a mental shrug, "They have to put some distance between us and Ikebukuro first. A lot of distance."

Even though it wasn't the end of the world, listening to Izaya was…

 _Annoying._

Izaya felt the truck slow and turn, tipping to the side to reciprocate, just so that he would keep his balance rather than ungracefully falling on his face. If anything, the fact that Izaya was free to move around yet Shizuo was in invisible restraints had to account to something.

Was it just a way to keep them from killing each other?

How long would it take until Shizuo could move again?

Izaya felt himself frown at the thought that he was relying on the beast. No, surely not. If anything, the beast was relying on _him_ to do the thinking. After all, Shizuo was about as useless as a lump of sugar right now, and a lump of sugar would at least carry a conversation more effectively than the single-celled amoeba.

As Izaya diverted his attention to the crates piled in the back, he felt Shizuo's demanding presence grate on his nerves. His steps were soft and quiet, and once again, he had to stop to focus on balance when he felt the truck begin to turn.

Izaya stiffened in rumination about where they are, yet he doubted that was the most immediate concern. The truck jolted as it ran over something - a rock? Grates?

Being kept in the dark like this . . . Izaya felt the cold press of emotion in the back of his throbbing head, a sensation not unlike wheeling right out of control.

At any rate, he slid the lid off the nearest crate, the wood creaking and showering splinters as it hit the ground. He rummaged around the styrofoam, fingers closing over something sleek and cylindrical - a marker. There was more in this box, but the object in his hand captured his attention.

"Oh look, Shizu-chan~" Izaya grew closer to the other, uncapping the lid. The marker's plastic glinted faintly, like some sort of unorthodox knife. In his clear-cut handwriting, Izaya wrote the distinctive kanji along Shizuo's cheek:

獣

"Monster," he whispered scathingly, then patted the other on the shoulder like a job well-done. Louder, he continued, "See? I named you, like a good owner should." He capped the marker and placed it in Shizuo's lap. "Hold onto this chew toy for me."

Shizuo quickly retorted by spitting in Izaya's face.

" _Fuck_ you, Izaya. I hope you rot in hell. Whatever the hell you did, you dragged _me_ into this as well, because this sick fuck thought he'd get some sympathy out of having his rival as a hostage, like some kind of fucked up story. This _truce_ we have is _**temporary**_ , and as soon as I can, I'll leave you in the fucking dust to _die_ for all I care. Go fuck yourself, Izaya, you dumb fucking flea."

 _Annoying. This is all annoying._

The corner's of Izaya's lips upturned. _Ah, there's my monster and his venomous anger._

 _Amusing._

He flicked the saliva off his face, clicking his tongue in disapproval. "Temper, temper," he chided, in the same patronizing way an adult would be scolding a child. "At least you're finally being yourself, rather than parading about, acting so _kind_ around your caretakers. No one likes a fake."

"Shut the hell up and open the rest of those boxes." The fingers on his left hand twitched. More progress was being made.

Shizuo began thinking just _how_ he was going to get along with this flea. He couldn't bear all this shit he's been doing to him, but at least he'll get his chance to teach Izaya a lesson once the tranquilizers wear off.

Truthfully, he wasn't being truly serious when he threatened to leave Izaya the first chance he had, since he was holed up in here with him, and he was going to be stuck _with_ him, at least, until they can find their way out of this hellhole. He wasn't expecting anything up ahead to be pretty, and he knew that they wouldn't do any of the ordinary, or else they'd have already been riddled with bullets from the start, as corpses on the ground in Ikebukuro.

 _That'd make for one hell of a headline._

Izaya giggled at the _eloquent_ response he got. "Hai, hai," he replied, the other's movement not going unnoticed by him. _He's even recovering like a beast._

As he crouched by the crates and rummaged around, he was quiet for once, lips pursed in thought. Izaya wasn't sure how to feel about the situation, and so he resorted to feeling casual indifference. However, as soon as he found out who had the audacity to kidnap _him_ , as well as his monster, he wouldn't play so nicely.

His teeth ground against each other realizing what was left for them. In the boxes, there were heart-shaped boxes of chocolate truffles, decadent bottles of wine, pink sheets of paper with a floral aroma, markers and pens of various colors, scented candles and matches, and - his fingers jostled clicking links of metal - chains and shackles. Bile crept up the back of his throat.

The implications were clear.

In the adjacent ones pressed against the very back, he found blankets and pillows colored a brusque shade of red, as well as an inflatable mattress with heart-shaped designs. His mouth curled with disgust, but he forced a cheerful tone, choosing to lie by omission.

"Shizu-chan, they were kind enough to leave us presents." He pretended to search around some more, packing styrofoam peanuts dislodged, a few stray ones landing by Shizuo. "Let's see . . . There's some paper, markers, blankets, food - ah, look. Milk. That's similar to a sedative for you, ne?"

At the mention of precious milk, Shizuo resisted the urge to tell him to hand it over, since that would probably mean he'd try and make him drink it like some sort of baby - which, coincidentally, is what Izaya probably wanted him to do. Damn flea.

Shizuo groaned.

 _This truck's pissing me off with its constant turning._

He started wondering what it was supposed to mean…

Izaya could see that the brute was thinking again and decided to intervene on this phenomenon, lest Shizuo hurt himself. "We're going in circles. Surely you realized that by now, brute, unless I'm overestimating you again?" He gestured lavishly at the crates. "They expect us to stay here for a while."

 _What an insult._ His fingers clenched over the fabric of his dark jeans minutely, and he leaned back on his haunches, watching Shizuo sidelong with a lazy half-smile.

Shizuo let out an annoyed groan.

"The tranquilizers are gonna wear off sometime soon, so all I have to do is sit and wait. Doesn't sound so hard."

Truth be told, while it didn't sound so bad, spending more and more time with this flea made Shizuo more irritated and annoyed; hell, the tranquilizers might just wear off even _faster_ if Izaya can piss him off _really_ badly, which he was quite an adept at doing. He was Izaya, after all, and Izaya's very presence was enough to put Shizuo in a bad mood.

He considered on what to say for a few moments.

"While we're here and kidnapped, could you at least be a _little_ less of an asshole, huh? Unless you want your throat ripped out."

His hands twitched, and Shizuo could feel a slight amount of movement returning to his arms.

Izaya made a sound halfway between a laugh and a scoff. "Oh, Shizu-chan. You expect too much of me. How can I cut down the time of indulging in one of my favorite hobbies - poking and prodding at the monster?"

He took what could be useful. He spread one of the blankets out, putting in whatever food there was, as well as the matches, candles, paper, chains ( _Tch._ ), and markers. The last probably weren't going to help, but he had taken a liking to them.

His rustic orbs slid to the swirling ink on Shizuo's cheek. _Monster._ As he gathered the blanket up and tied it using the extra length of the chain, he repeated the word to himself, again and again. _Monster. Monster. Monster._

"Quit fuckin' lookin' at me like that." Shizuo sharply replied.

The inner mantra continued, even as another obnoxious laugh was let out at the statement. Much to his own surprise, he obliged, quietly retreating to the far side of the truck. He felt along the edges, digging his nails in the ridge between the door and the adjacent walls. His fingers skimmed over the latch, and he paused. _Is it . . . ?_

The silence continued to stretch out between them like molasses. He began to giggle. It must have seemed quite manic to observers, but there was no time to dwell on that now.

"'The most obvious solution is the correct one,'" he stated to himself.

The latch clicked open, and Izaya lifted the door up. Immediately, wind and rain rippled through his hair, snapping his shirt back. The road was a blur of black. The surroundings were dark with trees, whatever moonlight that broke through the clouds casting long shadows.

The trees . . . he couldn't be sure from the darkness, but he had a feeling they weren't native to Japan.

"What do you think, Shizu-chan?" he stated, voice raising to carry over the sound of wind, engine, and rain. "Lovely weather we're having."

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "You gonna make your great escape there? I wouldn't be _against_ it, but it's probably a good idea to get your ass back here instead of making your head wet."

Shizuo could feel more movement return to his arms, and some to his legs. But nothing yet to his torso, since that's where he was tranquilized, of course.

"A great escape," he echoed, a little dreamily. The prospect of death enticed him, so long as he can ensure _where_ he was going. That was where Celty came in, and all the happenings in Ikebukuro …

Izaya held the edge of the truck and leaned forward as far as he could go without falling. As he was introduced to icy rain, he wondered what hell was raised by his disappearance, and to an extent, Shizuo's.

Getting back to daily routine, to completing his quest, to watching his oh-so-predictable humans - it seemed so far away now. It was as if he had strayed too far from the road. He was reminded of Japanese folklore, speaking of a snow woman with ephemeral beauty who draws travelers into a cold grave, much like sirens did to sailors.

 _Perhaps this is what it is like to be lead astray._

His breaths condensed in the air, and the urge to return back to familiarity possessed him. He leaned out a little more, fingers straining against the slick metal.

"Are you fucking _nuts,_ flea? Actually, don't answer that."

It was then when Izaya's hearing wasn't muffled by the truck's engine did he notice a periodic _tic tic tic_.

His gaze dropped to the bombs lining the bottom of the truck, like little red eyes by the truck's tail lights. "It seems we are under a time limit. I suppose this is the warm-up for whatever they have planned. There is no jumping off of this, lest you want me to break every bone in my body, Shizu-chan. Surely you wouldn't want that when you clearly want to do that _yourse_ -"

Izaya broke off, coming to a conclusion that he very clearly found funny. He leaned back into the truck, hair and face damp, coat dripping, and clutched his sides as he convulsed with laughter. He even pantomimed wiping a tear away.

"The hell's so funny about all of this?" Shizuo asked Izaya, in an angry tone. He always wondered why the louse had to be so mysterious about everything.

Izaya's torso ached as he fought the laughter down. He grinned, and perhaps it was the droplets of water trailing down his face, as well as the reddish hue cast from the bombs and truck's lights combined, that it seemed a little wild, a little demonic.

"Shizu-chan," he began, speaking slowly and enunciating each vowel carefully, even as his voice wavered with mirth. "If I jumped off, I'd be dead, unfortunately. If you did, with your monster body, you'd be fine, but now you clearly can't move anything beyond your hands, from what I can tell. However, if you broke my fall … " He trailed off, leaving Shizu-chan to fill in the blanks.

Izaya settled back, as if watching this was a good show, and snickered. It was always interesting watching Shizuo's nonexistent brain fry.

 _No. You have to be fuckin' with me. This flea is NOT serious._

"So you plan on usin' me as a fucking _meat-shield_ , louse? You're fuckin' with me, right? That _ain't_ the only way we can get ourselves out of this hellhole. You can lift me up and carry me over so that I can bust that fuckin' slat open so that you can stop the truck. Flea, I am _not_ gonna be your _bounce ball._ "

Izaya sighed. If anything, by the pattern the truck was taking, he expected that there wasn't anyone driving it. It must be controlled remotely; when the bombs go off, whoever had them here wouldn't want one of their own to perish.

He shrugged inwardly, sounding vaguely resigned. "Shizu-chan - I know you lack the minimum logic a person is supposed to have since you're a monster, but this is too much, even for you." Nonetheless, Izaya walked over to the other, supposing that the brute should see it for himself to get it through his thick skull.

As much as it disgusted him to engage in physical contact rather than having sharp blades as the connecting medium, Izaya turned around, bent down, and lifted Shizuo's arms over his shoulders. Legs tensing, he straightened, taking the blond with him. "Ne, Shizu~ Ever imagined embracing me like this?" The gibe was uttered in a mixture of mocking and distaste, his smirk sharp as ever.

Shizuo scowled. He _really_ did not like being dragged by the flea, and that suggestion of his did _not_ help anything in this situation. He knew one person who wanted it to be that way, but he'd rather sell his soul to the _actual_ Devil than do _that_.

"No. That's disgusting. _You're_ disgusting. C'mon, hurry this shit up, I'd rather get this over with sooner than later." His voice was resigned and annoyed, as always.

What Shizuo didn't mention was that he's gotten a decent amount of feeling back in his arms, and he'd rather save his energy for later than try to punch Izaya's teeth out right on the spot. He _did_ consider it a legitimate possibility, however. As with many other things that included inflicting pain of varying degrees to the flea bastard.

Izaya raised an eyebrow, smile unfaltering. "Says the one whose breath smells like those wretched cancer sticks. Shizu-chan must be feeling the effects of not having one, ne? Or are the tranquilizers enough to keep you from your revolting habits?"

With the height difference, Shizuo's feet ended up dragging on the floor, and Izaya had to stop every so often whenever the truck had to turn and his grip on Shizuo's wrists slipped. "Shizu-chan should hold back on the sweets~" he stated, the closest thing that will come to a legitimate complaint.

Shizuo wasn't _that_ heavy, yet Izaya was one of a lithe build.

"Not my fault you're so fuckin' weak. I'm surprised you could even hold me up. Stop whining, and focus on getting over there, I can't... "

Shizuo did not regret saying the next words.

"I can't _stand_ you for any longer than I have to." A small grin forms on his face.

Izaya snorted. "Is Shizu-chan _actually_ resorting to puns? I feel as though I'm watching evolution fast-forward. Perhaps you have graduated from being a protozoan and are now the most primitive of animals - the placozoa."

Finally, they reached the front of the truck, and Izaya lifted Shizuo's hands by the slat.

There was no timer on the bombs out back, so Izaya couldn't help but picture the amusing scene of Shizuo breaking it open only to turn the truck into a burning pile of scrap metal.

"Didn't know you had such a high opinion of me, flea." His eyes narrowed through the slat, and being much closer this time…

There was neither a driver nor a steering wheel. It was all automated.

"Fuck. Guess you really have to use me as a fuckin' meat-shield, huh. Better hope my suit doesn't get torn."

He sighs. "Just fuckin'... hurry up."

 _So like Shizu-chan to care of his darling brother's suit._ Izaya began to head back to the open end of the truck and dumped Shizuo unceremoniously onto the ground.

"Fucking louse…"

As he gathered the bed-sheet-that-doubled-as-a-bag and slung it over his shoulder, he crouched back down, smiling innocently. The truck jolted as it ran over something again, most probably the object from before. "Shizu-chan, you should be able to move your arms by now. You have to hold onto me." _So that I don't become unidentifiable roadkill._

"Where exactly do you want me to hold you? You know this better than I do."

Izaya's eyebrows lifted almost imperceptibly as he sat by the other. Shizuo was being surprisingly agreeable. "One arm holding my waist, the other my head, so that I don't get whiplash."

Shizuo doesn't reply as he does just that (though with slightly slowed movements), and Izaya can feel his tight grip even in Shizuo's weakened state.

"Now or never, flea."

Once again, Izaya straightened. The ends of his hair were curling from his mini-bath in the rain, and his coat still left trails of water. However, with his head against the other's chest, he could still feel Shizuo's warmth through the cold.

 _It's like he's a space heater,_ Izaya thought, inexplicably grumpy with that observation.

It was an odd way of carrying someone, which meant it was just as difficult moving that someone, yet Izaya managed to reach the lip of the exit with his pack bundled in one hand and Shizuo's shirt in the other. Wind and rain combined pushed them back; Izaya's legs tightened, keeping them rooted in place as well as bracing himself to jump.

"Here we go, Shizu-chan~"

With that, Izaya threw themselves off the truck.


	2. Not Here, Not Now

**Author's Note:** Thank you all for reading~ We decided to post the next chapter sooner than the planned date, which is this Saturday, so we hope you will enjoy it.

Be sure to favorite and drop a review!

 **The Other Author's Note:** Feel free to tell us if Shizuo and Izaya are being out of character - criticism is fair game, as long as it points out flaws in how we write!

* * *

 **Not Here, Not Now.**

There's wasn't a lot of things Orihara Izaya hated. Despite him being a man of taste, with what his multiple expensive apartments, decadent choice of food, and technology of the highest caliber, he claimed to love everything. Specifically, he claimed to love all _humans_ with every fiber of his being, as evidenced by his somewhat manic ramblings and favorite hobby being people-watching.

His secretary Yagiri Namie would attest to that.

She would also attest to his somewhat manic ramblings of Izaya's present company, the informant raving about his hatred for him and how much of an unpredictable monster he was.

There wasn't a lot of things Izaya hated, yet a certain someone quite evidently topped that list. Something Izaya decided to tack on to the end was 'jumping off of a truck moving over 100 mph wrapped in the arms of his fated enemy as it rained.'

When Shizuo hit the road, he winced in pain. It seemed like there were some _intense_ drugs pumped into his body; as he noted that before he didn't even notice bullets and shrugged off various cars and trucks hitting him at high speeds.

He grit his teeth as they rolled over and Shizuo's back was slammed against the concrete over, and over, and over, and over, each time only somewhat slowing down in speed and intensity.

Eventually, they were put to a stop. In the middle of the road. With Shizuo keeping a tight and painful grip on Izaya. With Shizuo staring directly at Izaya's eyes, a deep frown on his face.

Despite himself, the informant's eyes were clenched shut. The bouncing around had made his post-tranquilizer headache reach a crescendo he could hardly ignore. Blood and adrenaline hummed in his ears, even as the world had grown still.

Several moments passed before Izaya became aware of the pain induced by Shizuo's hold, and his eyes slid open, lips parting in the start of a smooth, witty comment. However, he was also made exceedingly mindful of the proximity.

Izaya's eyebrows were lifted dubiously as rustic brown clashed with hazel. His mouth closed, lips forming a thin line, and he grumbled, "What are _you_ looking at?"

In retrospect, there was a repertoire of scathing statements he could have said, but Izaya blamed the pain numbing his back and the adrenaline and headache clouding his judgement. _It is only a temporary lapse; it will pass_ , he reasoned.

Shizuo's grip on Izaya went weak, enough to let Izaya get off and stand up, and strong enough to not let him fall on his face.

"A flea. Now get off, get me up, and let's find some shelter. You're gonna get sick."

He accompanied this with a slight push to the right, an indication that he should get off.

Izaya licked his dry lips once before getting to his feet slowly, as to keep the dizziness at bay. The movement wasn't as graceful as he would have liked it to be. Despite Shizuo breaking his fall quite effectively, being jostled around. having bruising hands hold him in place, and entertaining icy water heavying his clothes took a toll on his body. "Ah, yes. Monsters don't get sick, after all."

They should get off the road before the truck comes rolling back. Who knew when it would explode?

"Shut the hell up."

Izaya brushed his coat off, as if he was wiping away any imprint Shizuo left on him. "Shizu-chan should play nice if he expects me to help him stand and escape the risk of being trampled by a truck." He stretched his arms out above him, joints popping. "Though you _do_ have a lot of experience getting run over, ne? Perhaps I should leave you be ..." He trailed off, anticipating the other's reaction.

"Play _nice?_ What the _fuck_ do you think I'm gonna do, huh? I'm not gonna play _nice_ for a fucking louse like you. I said it before and I'll say it again, _fuck you_ Izaya. I'd rather get run over and explode under the truck than help you." A vein was throbbing on Shizuo's forehead.

Izaya's self-satisfied smile only widened at the outburst. He dropped his arms, shaking his hands out like a conductor instructing his orchestra. "Lecturing the one who is currently holding the cards? Besides, _Shizu-chan_ , haven't you ever stopped to wonder why I always managed to set you off with that one word? It's only because you _yourself_ are subconsciously aware of how much of a monster you are, even though you don't outrightly acknowledge it. You even distance yourself from everyone, constantly worry about them finding out how much of a _**monster**_ you are.

"And so you _pretend._ That's why I'm going to spend every chance I get reminding you of what you are, up until your monstrous lungs take their last breath. You will die, and _I_ will be the one to end you. Your face will be warped with that delicious, animalistic rage, your thoughts so contorted that you're reduced to mindless instinct and incoherency, stripped down to your hideous core. I will stand above you as I always have been and be the hero vanquishing the demon." Izaya walked slowly to the other, stopping short of Shizuo's arm's reach. He looked down his nose at him, handsome face twisted into a sneer. "The only reason I'm not doing so now is because I don't dirty my hands with downed dogs."

Shizuo was _furious_. He was bulging with anger, and was just about ready to grab at Izaya's throat to choke him out - to strangle the life out of him. Izaya was a bastard at heart, Shizuo _knew_ that. He was someone you couldn't trust with anything, and the flea didn't trust Shizuo either.

Even in all his anger, frustration, subconscious madness inside him, Shizuo couldn't help but sigh.

"Tch. If you die, the world's gonna be happy. So at least the kidnapper did _some_ fuckin' favour to the world." Shizuo stared at Izaya, glaring eyes burning with anger meeting Izaya's own.

Izaya bristled, spine arching like a cat whose fur had been rubbed the wrong way. His contemptuous smile fell, making way for a frown. He knew Shizuo was susceptible to spouting asinine drivel, but it seemed the beast always found some way to _completely_ destroy his expectations.

Ah, but the look in his monster's eyes was enough for Izaya's grin to reappear. Whatever Shizuo said was to be tuned out, as white noise should.

His voice was quiet, patronizing, and scathing; it was as if each word that left his lips was sharpened with a whetstone, meant to cut and stab and serrate. "Shizu-chan, I told you before - you can't die here, you know. You will perish at the stage I set for you, at my own hands."

He gestured around them, at the dark forest, the ceaseless rain, the wet sack made from a blanket discarded off the side from trash. "Not in some …" His words trailed off. There was something down the road that caught at Izaya's eyes as they skated over, demanding attention; it was whatever object the truck had jumped over.

Izaya's held tilted in rumination, eyes squinting, but he didn't have much time to ponder over what it could be when headlights appeared down the road, turning the rain to sparkling shards of glass.

Shizuo frowned.

"The fuck are you gonna do now, huh? I'll break your arm if you touch me."

"Shizu-chan wouldn't do that. You're too weak to do so." Izaya's mind was busy at work, drawing up the effects of either decision. It was too early to let Shizu-chan die now, yet the brute's thickheadness would link Izaya helping him to a confession that Izaya needed him.

 _Let him think of this however he likes. It isn't every day you find a monster so fascinating in its chaos._

The truck was nearing. As it did so, a ringing had replaced the steady ticking of the bombs, as if an alarm were going off. Izaya moved quickly, crouching down to pull the other up onto his back and break for the trees. As his feet toed past asphalt and onto grass, he slipped on the slick street and tripped underneath Shizuo's weight, slamming into a tree. He bit back on a wheeze as the air was knocked out of him, ignoring the sensation of his teeth cutting into his tongue.

Behind him, beyond the warmth of Shizuo's body pinning his, there was a sound of tires screeching. He had enough time to see past the splinters in his vision and the pale fabric of Shizuo's shirt to notice the truck was careening to the side. As it hit the object in the road, the vehicle went airborne, and it slammed into the ground in a scream of metal rending, mere meters away from where Shizuo and Izaya were right now.

For a surreal moment, there was nothing but the cacophonous pitter-patter of rain and whisper of his own soft breathing, the feeling of wood and water against his face and a body against his back, moonlight breaking in between the clouds to highlight the scene of destruction before them.

Then, all at once, the night erupted in starburst of red.

* * *

Once the ringing in his ears had dropped to a barely perceptible hum, Izaya whipped around to face Shizuo, holding him up by his shoulders. The brute's bleached hair hung in his eyes as damp threads, and his head dipped down to his chest limply.

Behind him, heat blasted outward in waves, the distinctive crackle of fire lapping away at whatever got in its destructive path. Embers flickered by them, like fairies carried by the wind, only to darken and be doused by droplets of rain. There was a groan of metal as the truck's roof collapsed, ash swirling across the ground and settling down like snow. Further on, the unnamed object that interested him so, a shapeless mass against the road.

It was like a camera refocusing on an object, the rest of the world smeared into a blur. Izaya's gaze had settled on Shizuo's. The blond's skin had whitened, eyelashes fanned across his cheek, eyes closed. The glare of the fire touched his hair, turning it to white-gold, as washed-out as the man's skin.

The now water-smeared kanji for 'monster' seemed almost - _almost_ \- unfitting.

No monster should look so drained and _vulnerable._

He dismissed the thought almost as instantly as it had formed.

"Shizu-chan?"

The nickname was quiet, a picture of calmness not unlike Izaya's expression.

As the silence dragged on, he raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. _To think I'd ever get the chance to see Shizu-chan with such a slack expression. If only I had some way to document this …_

"Shizu-chan, you don't have the right to look like this, you know. At least when I don't have any suitable filming equipment."

What Izaya assumed to be Shizuo's unconscious body grunted, pale face gritting its teeth, presumably in pain.

"My _name_ is Heiwajima _Shizuo, flea,_ " he growled out, the edge taken off by the murmur of tiredness, before going limp again - presumably to sleep.

What could only have been soft snores began to sound from the man.

"... Really, now?"

Izaya wasn't in any hurry to settle him onto the ground - laying him chest down so that he could get a look at the others back. The bartender shirt and vest had been shredded by shrapnel, blood oozing out of multiple cuts. It was only then Izaya noticed something black inked along Shizuo's skin from in between the fraying threads.

He ripped away whatever remained of the fabric, brushing the scraps aside … and stiffened at what he saw.

 _Continue to play right into our hands, Shinjuku's informant._

His fingers clenched at the shirt's remnants in his hand. He could imagine the taunting voice that came along with that message, left just for him.

 _Not the time for this._

The metal lodged in his back would do worse coming out than going in. Izaya shook his head, retreating from Shizuo's side to retrieve the items he had , the blanket was only mildly ripped and soggy; it wouldn't break once he lifted it. He gathered it in his arms, turning halfway back to Shizuo.

With the light from the fire, he could finally make out what the object down the road was.

A corpse.

* * *

The heat from the wreckage undulated in waves, the raindrops evaporating against the ground closest to it. In the midst of it all stood a man in a fur-lined quietly laughing to himself. Abruptly, the inane giggles died out, replaced by a soft grunt as the brunette lifted an unconscious man in a ripped bartender suit onto his back.

The camera zoomed in on the odd pair, trying to capture a final glimpse of them before they disappeared into the cover of trees.


	3. Of Brutes, And Fleas

**Of Brutes, And Fleas.**

"Ne, Shizu-chan. How long do you expect me to play nurse? I'm getting bored."

The first thing that Heiwajima Shizuo woke up to was _not_ death - in fact, it was something even _worse_ than death. And that was Orihara Izaya.

"... Where the _fuck_ are we, flea? Ngh…" He grunted in pain.

 _Annoying,_ Shizuo thought. In this state, he was weak enough to experience _pain_. Wasn't that simply great for him?

Izaya perked up from his spot lazily splayed out next to him. His coat was hanging off a crumbling chair, with both their shoes and socks next to it, laid out to dry. He had folded one of the sheets of paper - rumped now - into a paper crane. His face was tinted pink for some inexplicable reason, eyes bloodshot. _Sleeping beauty awakens._ "We're in a ramshackle, leaking cabin that smells wonderfully of mold."

Shizuo's unorthodox bandages were made from red strips of blanket. On another square of fabric, pieces of metal crusted over with blood lay; Izaya had no choice but to pull them out, but at that time, he didn't have an option to stem the bleeding.

Izaya sat up, setting the crane down next to him carefully. "One down, nine-hundred ninety-nine to go." He pulled at the paper wings, as if the crane were flying. It was like a child playing with a toy, gentle as to not make it break. "You know of the one-thousand origami crane legend, ne? The gods grant a wish to whoever folds that many within a year."

"Yeah, because I'm gonna sit here and fucking fold _origami with you._ " Shizuo sounded annoyed - as always - with a hint of displeasure.

"Hmm …" Izaya placed his crane on top of Shizuo's bare stomach. Their skin brushed for a split-second, but that was enough for Izaya's too-hot fingers to make their mark. "Pleasant as always, you are. You're not even going to thank your savior? Shizu-chan has no manners; what a brute."

"Fuck you, damn louse. You saved me so that you could manipulate and use me some more. I'd rather have died back then than be saved by you. You're really easy to see through, you know that? So damn annoying…"

Izaya seemed quieter and more pacifying than usual - he was currently in a mixture of reflection and something else. "Shizu-chan is so mean. Couldn't you believe in the _slight_ chance I helped you with only yourself in mind?" Even as the words left his mouth, it sounded ludicrous to Izaya. Being seen through … The taste in his mouth soured, intermingling with the leftover metallic tang of blood when he had slammed into the tree.

"You think I'm _that_ fucking stupid, flea? I knew your standards of me were low, but not _this_ low. I don't know what you're trying to do here, besides piss me off, like _every_ single time." He growled.

"Stupid? You're finally showing some self-awareness." The corner of his mouth quirked up into a half-smile, laughing at a joke only he got - the brute hadn't knocked his pink crane off yet, nor had he noticed that the shirt part of the suit gifted to him by his beloved Kasuka was gone. "I wonder…" He pointed at the ceiling. Water and damp trickled down from in between the wooden slats, yet there was a distinctive silence that enshrouded the place. "It stopped raining. I would guess it's around three, four in the morning right now." He loosely wrapped his arms around his knees, resting a cheek on his damp jeans. _Cold …_ "Almost twelve hours, I assume. Perhaps more, if it took them over a day to transport us here." A shrug. "Wherever _here_ is."

During the period of Shizuo's pain-induced slumber, Izaya once again struggled to remember what had happened. The most he accomplished was that the sun was still out when the tranquilizer dart struck; everything beyond that was a mystery.

Shizuo's eyes glanced over to the frail body of Izaya's.

"... You're gonna get sick, flea - if you aren't already. You need some warm clothes, something that's not cold or wet." Shizuo spoke with strange calm, and the tone of annoyance nearly - only nearly - vanished from his voice.

"Clothes that aren't cold or wet," Izaya echoed dryly. "I wonder where I can get those from."

"Fuck off. I don't know what we're gonna do, and we don't even have any food." The irritation in his voice returned.

"The only food we have is chocolate and wine." Izaya's voice took on a fake edge of bemoaning. "There isn't any milk either. I lied."

Shizuo sighed. "Yeah, should've figured that coming from you. I don't think the chocolate's gonna last us long, and I sure as _hell_ won't drink any of that wine."

Izaya idly drew a circle in the rotting floorboards with his finger, tracing a path clean of dust. "So Shizu-chan smokes but doesn't drink?"

"You can be one without being the other, fleabag," Shizuo replied dryly.

"I didn't think you were smart enough to know that. You surprise me yet again. I might get a heart-attack and die from shock." He chuckled to himself. His face was definitely flushed red. "Wouldn't you like that~?"

"I'd really like that. You don't know _how_ much I'd like that, louse."

Izaya was quiet, staring at his own hands and brushing away pockmarks of dirt. Unlike Shizuo's, whose were tan and rough with calluses, Izaya's were pale and creamy, lacking in any sort of scar or imperfection. He linked them together. "Ne, Shizu-chan. You don't have to think about what comes next; that is up to me." A pause as Izaya considered the very viable theory that their kidnappers wouldn't want them to die just yet. "Then again, I would sooner kiss you than leave you to finding a way out of here. You'd lead us into a ditch."

Shizuo grinned as he wondered about the implications of that.

"The fuck? Do you have some fucking feelings for me, flea? Is _that_ why you've been fuckin' with me for all these years? Hell, that'd explain _EVERYTHING!"_ He started to laugh - lightly, as to not worsen his current injuries.

Izaya mimicked the grin. "That would be _you_ , wouldn't it? You chase me with as much passion as a love-struck fool. You even yell out my name - ' _Izaya-kun~_ '" The impersonation of Shizuo's voice was definitely off, if the flirtatious slur was any (glaring) indication.

"Your stupid nickname of me is ' _Shizu-chan_ ,' so don't think you're any better, flea."

Izaya lifted his eyebrows, unimpressed. "Your wit is about as sharp as a pebble."

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

"To think the first remotely civil conversation I have with Shizu-chan implies what our kidnappers find so funny." He prodded the crane, knocking it onto its side. "They actually left chains in the crates, along with a bunch of other romantic _playthings_."

"Wouldn't be surprised if everyone else back in Ikebukuro thought _that_ at least once."

Izaya's gaze flicked to Shizuo - the monster kanji was almost completely gone; just a formless black smear. Whatever hint of redness that lay within them was covered by a thin glaze, leaving his irises an uninteresting shade of brown. "Can you move?"

"Yeah. I don't feel numb anymore, but I don't want to risk injuring myself any further."

The informant retrieved the crane and lay back down, lifting away damp strands of raven hair to balance it on his burning forehead. "Now that you're all better, I suppose it's your turn to play nurse~?" He pointed at where the crane rested. "I have a fever."

What Izaya expected was a snappy reply. _This should be amusing_.

"Fuck." Shizuo sighed again. "I knew you'd get sick. Shitty flea." He grumbled, and looked down at himself, then back to Izaya. "You're fucking stupid enough to get sick, so I'm not surprised, but at least stay here until it passes."

Izaya's smile fell. _This is_ not _amusing_. Was that the beast's way of showing concern? _For_ me? _Disgusting_. "Hmph." He rolled onto his side, facing away from Shizuo. The crane flopped to the ground sadly with the movement.

"The fuck are you acting like I took away your candy? You _need_ something warm to cover yourself up with. You think I was gonna tell you to fuck off or somethin'? At least we're alive now, I don't want both of us to die painfully… at least."

Was that… genuinity in that last sentence? It sounded like it. … _Disgusting,_ Izaya mentally repeated, just as he glanced over his shoulder to retort, his voice lowering to a mocking purr, "Says the man missing a shirt. If you're so keen on keeping me warm, use your space-heating body for that purpose." Besides, the cold wasn't _that_ bad. It was just his damp clothes that gave his body the urge to shiver.

Izaya had shed his coat and footwear, yet he wasn't in any mood to strip down further.

 _The suit doesn't matter. I'll give shit to the flea for that later._

"Tch. I'm not _that_ desperate to keep you alive, flea. And you're not as fragile as thin glass or something. But I don't think I'll be able to stand up for a while, so that's…"

 _Fuck._ Shizuo hated saying these next words, letting out an annoyed grunt beforehand.

"It might be necessary to keep you alive, depending on how long I'm down for the count."

 _Fuck. I should not have said that. I should've just let the louse dance around with his fever._

The informant felt his eyebrow raise involuntarily. There was a considerable line of space between them right now, and even from here, Izaya could feel body heat wafting from Shizuo. Then again, Izaya must have felt the same to the bartender, despite him suppressing the tremors that threatened to shake his body in some desperate attempt at warmth.

He rolled onto his other side, Shizuo filling his vision in the most irritating way possible. His eyebrow was still raised, the silent equivalent of ' _Are you kidding me?_ '

"Do whatever dumb shit you want to do, flea. I don't care."

"I need a cigarette. And some milk, too…" His head turn to the ceiling, and he put his hands under his head.

"There's chocolate and wine," Izaya repeated, words slurring together ever-so-slightly in tiredness. The other could be made aware of the smudges of chalk worn underneath his eyes, the hollow of his cheek made more evident. "You always liked disgustingly sweet food." A snort. "Wonder where all _that_ disappears to."

Despite himself, Izaya edged closer to the monster, just enough so that he could feel the other through the black fabric of his shirt. His legs were angled away, curled up towards him, yet his knees now brushed the other.

"Fuck, you look tired. You should rest," Shizuo said in a monotonous tone.

"Hai, hai," he murmured sleepily, nuzzling in a little closer. _A monster shouldn't be offering me this brief respite, and the hero shouldn't be taking it._ Nonetheless, his eyes slid shut, tension easing from his chest as Shizuo's warmth chased away the cold that had settled bone-deep.

Soon enough, his breathing evened out.

"Such a stubborn fuckin' louse…" Izaya was stupendously stubborn. It made Shizuo frown.

 _Really damn annoying._

And after that, Shizuo fell asleep.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Thank you for reading, favoriting, followin', all that stuff! And we're pretty glad that our first review was pretty positive.

As always, reviews are always appreciated and important to keep Shizuo and Izaya in line (that is, as IC as possible.)


	4. Things That Bind, Things That Divide

**Things That Bind, Things That Divide.**

Orihara Izaya considered himself a light sleeper.

There were times when he had awoken himself from the soft sounds of his own breathing, from the creak of the mattress as he shifted in his sleep, or the muted rain against his window.

There were also times where tiredness would be so interwoven into his being that he would end up dozing like a log, in the sort of dreamless sleep he would associate with restful nights.

This time, his awakening seemed to be a mixture of both - he was fatigued enough to repose quietly, yet he was restless enough to notice the jarring discrepancy between his internal alarm clock and the distinctive lack of light filtering into the room.

Izaya knew where he was, and where he was had more holes in the walls than there were in a porous sponge.

 _I want a bath..._

That half-formed thought coincided with one that had him sitting up immediately, scooting away - _Why is it so warm and smelly?_

As it turned out, Izaya ended up tangling his arms around the other in his sleep. He felt bile touch the back of his throat, but the disgust was short-lived. In his hurry to get away, his hands had brushed two objects.

Despite his eyes being open, the darkness was so wholesome and complete that it was unsettling. No amount of blinking would allow them to adjust, and in different circumstances, he would have thought he was somewhere else if it was not for the distinctive scent of mold and feel of rotting floorboards at his feet.

Somewhere off the side, he heard water periodically drip. _What an outdated form of noise torture. It doesn't work when you have two people, you know._

His hands picked one up and felt along them. It was shaped like an arc, with two, soft leather cylinders attached to either side. He placed one over his head, the cylinders settling over his ears. He spoke aloud to confirm his suspicions, "Noise-canceling headphones. Why'd they leave these here?" Izaya set it back down, standing slowly as to not provoke the sense of vertigo that came with not knowing where you're stepping.

On the bright side, the fever and headache had faded, the only painful thing about them now being their memory. Izaya frowned as he mentally recounted last night's happenings. He couldn't even make out the sleeping form of the other, yet Shizuo's breathing was enough for Izaya to mutter, "Brute." Much to his surprise and displeasure, the insult echoed hollowly.

He closed his eyes, focusing on the map of the room he brought up from the back of his mind. Izaya moved to the right, counting the number of steps it took him to reach the wall. He spread his fingerpads over it, feeling cool, smooth steel - not wood.

Izaya walked back to where Shizuo lay, and he didn't bother making it subtle as he prodded the brute's side with his bare feet. There was a minute clinking sound as he did so, and Izaya's frown deepened. Nonetheless, he spoke loudly, with the intention of waking the other up, "Shizu-chan, it seemed a construction team came to redecorate while we were asleep. It should be easy enough for you to rip a hole in the wall, ne?"

Another nudge incited another clinking sound, like chain-links against one another. _Don't tell me they chained down the beast with_ me _in the cage._

A grumble was let out of Shizuo, as he slowly opened his eyes and blinked a few times, eyes not readjusting to the pitch black darkness.

"Eh? What? Say that again, flea, I didn't hear you." His voice sounded tired - given so, since he woke up only a few seconds ago.

Izaya crouched down, feeling around for the chains. They seemed ordinary enough. His nose crinkled; something definitely smelled - it was tangy and pungent. "Our kidnappers reinforced the walls with steel while we were asleep." He thought back at the headphones. "They did quite the job at keeping us from waking up, but I don't feel as though I'm on tranquilizers." Izaya tapped Shizuo's forehead - or where he thought it was. "No headache. What about you? You smell terrible."

"Cut that shit out, I'm fine," he grumbled, slowly sitting himself up, and felt to his chest with his hand for the suit - it was gone, just as Izaya said.

 _Fucking louse._ But that thought was quickly replaced as he felt something slick and disgusting on his chest.

"What the fuck is this?" He said as he rubbed his thumb against some of it and pinched it against his index finger.

"Smells fuckin' terrible, too. Smells like petrol or something."

Izaya recounted the details, enumerating them on his fingers. "Shizu-chan is chained down and is doused in flammable liquid. It's completely dark. There is water dripping off somewhere, so I would have assumed it would be noise torture, except _you_ are here, and we have those headphones." He tapped his chin in thought, before raising his finger in an ' _Aha!_ ' moment, despite the other being unable to see it. "I packed candles and matches."

Izaya left the other, feeling around for the items. His steps resounded against the walls, but finally, he felt his fingers grasp the sack's torn cloth. "Just don't get too close, Shizu-chan." He giggled. "We don't want the beast going up in flames just yet."

"I don't trust you with the candles, but whatever. Try not to 'accidentally' drop one on me, flea." Shizuo blinked. Damn, it was so dark. He couldn't see anything. Though, he felt… strange… a subdued feeling, but he could certainly feel it coursing through the back of his mind, only described as ' _strange_ '.

 _It'll probably go away when the louse lights a candle or two._

"Naturally," he replied, voice lilting in amusement. It was an interesting image in his head. Perhaps he would use fire whence they met at the final stage, a showdown between a god and a monster.

There was the soft sound of a match whistling against its lighter, made loud by the sheer emptiness of the room. Sparks flew, eventually coalescing into a single flame. Izaya's face could be seen in the dim, warm light; one of his hands was lifted around the matchstick as if to protect the flame from a nonexistent draft.

He lit two of the candles, a sweet rosey scent wafting up over the tang of gasoline. Izaya left one next to the bag, functioning as a marker, and lifted the other into his hand. It was carefully balanced as to not let the melting wax slosh out and burn his fingers.

Izaya began to move around the room. The light would only be enough for him to make out anything within a two-meter radius. With the play of light and shadows, Izaya couldn't help a trickle of cool sweat drizzle down from in between his narrow shoulder-blades. He neared the wall once more - there seemed to be something written on it in scarlet, yet with its large scale, Izaya could hardly make it out. His gaze followed the large strings of text continuing to his right and wrapping around the adjacent wall.

Sniff. Shizuo rubbed his eyes in annoyance. The smell in the air wafted of something unlike the gasoline or the sickly sweet scent of the candle - it was something dangerously familiar.

Shizuo tries pulling his left leg closer to him, so that he could begin to stand up, but his foot hits something… _sticky_.

"Fuck, what the fuck else did they put here? God…" Shizuo moved his foot over to look at what he touched, and it was _red_. A dark shade of red.

 _Is that…? No. That's not my blood. That's not Izaya's blood, either. He's not injured…_

Shizuo's breathing tensed slightly.

"Get these fucking chains off me flea; I don't want to sit here anymore." His eyes glance around the room, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and Izaya. All hidden under those blue-tinted glasses.

 _No. No, no, no. What the fuck's going on? Why's there blood on the walls? What the FUCK is going on here?!_ Shizuo's breathing tensed further.

Izaya turned back to face the other, gaze narrowing in scrutiny. _They gave him something?_ "Shizu-chan should be strong enough to snap the chains off himself. I'm not in the mood to pick locks," he drawled. Despite his casual demeanor, Izaya's muscles were taut, as if he were preparing himself for a trap to spring.

As he neared the other, the consistent _drip-drop, drip-drop_ sounded from the opposite corner. His eye twitched; it was starting to grate on his nerves. _And now I'm starting to sound like a certain protozoan._

The candle's saccharine scent was heavy in the air, thin trails of smoke clouding around Izaya's features. "Don't tell me Shizu-chan has succumbed to his animalistic instincts yet again? It appears you are sniffing something out like a bloodhound."

"Shut the _fuck_ up, Izaya." Shizuo felt a vein throbbing on his head, as he eyed the trail of blood, tracing it back to where it originally came from, and after turning his head about 45 degrees to the left, saw something that set Shizuo _off._

"Fuck, no, Kasuka! KASUKA!" Shizuo frantically pulled at his chains, not caring about potentially worsening the wounds on his back.

Shizuo tried to break the chains, giving in more effort with each pull, hoping his monstrous strength would return, hoping that it would help in at least _this_ case.

"KASUKA!" He yelled out, voice wrought with intensity. His eyes swelled with - fortunately misplaced - rage, and could feel something rising under his eyes.

 _Kasuka-kun?_ Izaya followed the other's line of vision, gaze landing at an empty spot on the ground. He felt himself begin to smile. _So they fed the beast psychoactives. Let's see how far I can take this._

Steering clear of the monster's flailing limbs - _still not strong enough to break the chains, hmm?-_ Izaya moved to where the beast thought Kasuka was. "Eh~?" he questioned, prodding his foot at empty air. "It seems the kidnappers had a little fun, ne, Shizu-chan?" Izaya crouched down. "I suppose that is how it ends for all those who aren't strong enough to associate with monsters." His shoulders jolted once in suppressed laughter, but one couldn't miss the twitch of his lips in the dim candlelight. "Shizu-chan really knows how to endanger those he cares about."

A pause, his voice eerily loud and hollow and shrill. "And _now_ , Kasuka-kun is dead."

Just like Izaya predicted, Shizuo's thoughts melted into animalistic bloodlust.  
 _Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill kill._

That's all what Shizuo was thinking in the moment, as he clawed and kicked at thin air, yelling out Izaya's name.

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! YOU FUCKING DID THIS, IZAYA! I'LL RIP YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF! IZAYAAAAAAAA!"

Izaya may not have noticed, but tears were forming in his eyes.

"YOU'RE A FUCKING _MONSTER_ , IZAYA!" Shizuo's voice was scratchy, despairful, and filled with raw emotion. Those simple words were all it took to send him into blind rage. Yet, he was still unable to break the chains holding him.

Izaya's voice rose as if to compete with the other's, tone bordering the edge of manic. "Shizu-chan!" _Laughter._ "You got it all wrong. _I_ didn't do this. _You_ did."

It was as if the informant had flipped a switch. All at once, it appeared as though a sticky carmine liquid had covered Shizuo's hands, his chest, his clothes. It was crusted underneath his fingernails, tangled in his hair, dripping into his eyes - Kasuka's blood. All along his skin pulsated a single word, inked in black - " _ **Monster**_."

"FUCK YOU, IZAYA! IZAYAAAA! " Shizuo gritted his teeth so hard he felt like he would break them. His attempts at breaking the chains off stopped completely, and he collapsed onto the floor.

The only thing audible in the room was the _drip-drop, drip-drop_ , and the broken-up, hitched breathing from the ' _monster_ ' Izaya knew.


	5. The Human, The Monster

**Author's Note:** To yotsuba, this is our first fic that the two of us have actually put effort into, so mistakes are to be made.  
You can be assured that the later chapters are longer and more fleshed-out, but the pacing...  
Well, it's sort of a Your Mileage May Vary kinda thing, so I really apologize if it's not your thing.  
It varies from chapter to chapter, but we'll try to speed it up! Thank you for pointing it out though, you aren't being rude at all!

Thank you all for reading!

* * *

 **The Human, The Monster.  
**

 _At the request of Kasuka, Heiwajima Shizuo had curiously arrived at one filming location. And since he was his brother, he decided to ditch smoking a cigarette for this particular occasion._

 _"Huh. This place is pretty loud…"_ And annoying, _Shizuo thought, but that needn't be said out loud in front of all these people._

 _"Wonder where Kasuka is."_

 _Off to the side, there was the distinct call of a certain Hanejima Yuuhei-san. To the certain fortissimo of Ikebukuro, this man would be his younger brother, who was currently done up in makeup that made his skin as pale white as a vampire's. Bloody incisors poked out, resting against his lips._

 _Kasuka's expression was set in his omnipresent one of emotionless indifference, yet there was a slight shift in his eyes as he caught sight of the blond, something the debt collector easily recognized as happiness. Quickly, he bowed to the director in apologies and approached his brother. "Nii-san. You came."_

 _That single sentence put a small smile on Shizuo's face._

 _"Yeah. Doesn't hurt to visit once in awhile, right? Surprised Izaya didn't fuck around this time and have it be ruined. Maybe he's in a good mood today."_

 _Kasuka listened quietly, as he always did whenever the informant's name would be brought up. It was the sort of quiet that accompanied understanding. From behind his back, he lifted two cartons of milk, offering one to the taller man._

 _"Oh. Thanks. I haven't drunk milk all day, so that helps. 'S that why you wanted me here?" Shizuo asked curiously. Unlike anyone else, Shizuo's tone of voice projected no annoyance or anger towards Kasuka, instead mild passiveness and friendliness. Kasuka was the only person who wasn't even slightly afraid of his monstrous strength, other than Izaya. Who he hated._

 _Kasuka shook his head. "Nii-san usually gets into trouble. Today, you should take the day off."_

 _"Yeah… yeah, that sounds like... a good idea. Thanks for the tip, Kasuka. What, uh, are you gonna do, though? You don't have too much break time, right? Since you act all day and stuff…" Shizuo's eyes glanced over to the filming set, then back to Kasuka._

 _It was a very, very slight change in his expression, but it almost seemed like Kasuka was smiling. He gestured for the other to follow._

 _Soon enough, they had ended up lounging on a bench, overlooking the sea. The film set they had rented out was in a forest of sorts, and it was the sort of landscape that soothed you just by looking at it. The air held a mixture of a salty tang as well as the fresh scent of leaves, a breeze rustling the branches._

 _"Wouldn't it be nice if we had more days like these? Where we could just hang out around some nature, peace and quiet around us… I dunno. Somewhere that's not Ikebukuro, with all the grinding urban noise and all the annoying people walking around doing dumb stuff._

 _"Maybe… I wonder what's it like to not have monster strength. To not be called one, and to not think you're one, either."_

 _For a while, the two sat there, sipping milk while they spoke - or rather, as Shizuo spoke, while Kasuka listened._

 _"Thanks, Kasuka. For bringing me out here."_

 _..._

 _"I really enjoyed it."_

* * *

It seems most of the times Izaya experienced the unpleasant emotion known as 'shock,' a certain blonde in a bartender suit had something to do with it.

He hadn't expected the brute to break down. Throw things, yes. Threaten him, rave and froth in anger, glare at him, growl at him like a beast, uproot the chains and attack at the sound of Izaya's mocking laughter, face him with an expression so contorted with rage and so far from human that it made Izaya's heart race with excitement.

He hadn't expected Shizuo to be borderline _crying._

Once Izaya found his voice, his mouth was curved deliberately into a pout, and he rolled his eyes. "Shizu-chan, would you stop? It's unbefitting. Whatever you're seeing is not real; you're hallucinating." He waved a hand as if to carry the point across. _If I knew you'd break so easily, I wouldn't have pushed that hard._

Shizuo's hitched breathing quieted down.

His head was facing the floor, eyes damp.

He didn't respond.

The informant, lacking his trademark coat, walked closer to the other. His fingers grasped the candle, the other flickering a few meters away. Izaya planned on maintaining a safe distance from the beast, and he drawled, each syllable clear-cut,

"Shi-

-zu-

 _-chan._ "

Shizuo's torso twitched. He _despised_ Izaya. He _hated_ Izaya.

 _Kill kill kill kill kill._

He was going to make Izaya pay for all of this.

 _Killkillkillkillkillkillkill._

He was going to make him suffer.

 ** _KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL-_**

With manic strength, Shizuo's chains busted out from their holding place, as he lunged towards the one thing he wanted dead - in animalistic rage, once again.

 _"IIIIIIIZAAAAAAAAAAAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"_

The candle tumbled from Izaya's grip, the flame sputtering against the ground with a spray of molten wax, thrusting them into shadow. The second candle stood out starkly, flickering like a firefly.

Izaya barely had enough time to twist to the side, dodging those monstrous hands. His chest heaved as he scanned the room wildly, panic edging into his throat - _No room to ru- The candle._ His gaze flickered to Shizuo's form. _The petrol._

The thought was enough to make him calm down, and he began to scramble for the object, only to feel Shizuo's crushing hands grab his neck.

 _"I'LL FUCKING **KILL** YOU!"_

Izaya sputtered, tipping back on his ankles and allowing gravity to draw them to the ground. His spine slammed against the rotted floorboards, but the pain was benign compared to that of having his throat pressed down by the beast. His pulse was going wild underneath Shizuo's hands, like that of a frightened rabbit's, but Izaya's expression was controlled, as though he held all the cards.

 _"FUCKING SCUMBAG FLEA, I'LL TURN YOUR FUCKING HEAD INTO RED PASTE!"_

Shizuo smashed Izaya's head against the floorboards.

Pain blurred his vision as his teeth found a home in the roof of his mouth.

And again.

His chest jolted, an involuntary groan bitten back. Blood filled his mouth, invasive in its metallic tang. In his peripheral sight, Izaya could spot the candle. His stretched his arm to reach for it, yet his fingers only grazed the tin containing it.

If there was anything rational in Shizuo, it was gone by now. He was set in sight for _murder_. Something he always wanted to avert. But in desperate situations like these, any hope he had fainted, and was replaced with rage. Rage against Izaya.

So he smashed his head against the floorboards. Again.

Spots now danced in Izaya's vision, pain muddling his thoughts. The only coherent ones running through his head were the ever-consistent mantra of 'monster.' _His_ monster.

His fingers struggled over the lip of the candle tin, and he tipped it down slowly, hot wax spreading over his fingers in a barely registered sting of pain and winding around the wick. The flame flickered once, disrupted, but continued to glow steadily.

 _Yes, this is what I want your expression to be when you look at me._

A bloodied smile spread over his lips, and Izaya began to laugh - a rasp of a sound.

That only made Shizuo even angrier than he already was. Looking at Shizuo's eyes, it felt as though all Izaya could see was a raging white.

Another smash against the floorboards.

Izaya's hand finally managed to close over the candle. His vision was edged in black, invisible fingers tugging down at his consciousness and urging him to rest, to sleep. _Not yet._ He formed a wad of blood and saliva in his mouth and spat it in Shizuo's burning gaze.

In this foggy, disjointed perspective, Izaya couldn't help but admire the chaos in the other's expression. _Yes, yes … just like that._

He slammed the flame into Shizuo's chest just as darkness swarmed his vision.

 _Absolutely perfect._

The movement of his lips was so slight it could have been missed, yet they formed over unmistakable words, Izaya's voice a croak.

 ** _"_** _My_ ** _monster."_**

* * *

At first, Shizuo was confused. There was a sudden increase of heat on his chest, and the flea he was about ready to smash the life out of went limp.

He snapped himself out of animalistic rage for a moment and felt the skin on his chest burning.

 _Fuck. Did he just fucking…_ Shizuo let go of the flea and stood up, running over towards Izaya's coat.

 _He ruined my suit, I'll ruin his coat. The fuck do I care?_

Quickly, he pressed it against his chest as a means to settle the fires - there could not be a fire without any oxygen, after all. And even though his skin burnt, pain receptors only somewhat going off, he was quick enough to prevent his skin from quite literally burning off.

Setting down the charred coat on the floor unceremoniously, kicking it off towards Izaya with his foot, he sneered, and spit on the ground.

"Disgusting fucking bastard flea. Rot in hell someday, will you?"

Shizuo's skin on his chest constricted his breathing. It was burnt, definitely, but there were no patches of missing skin, and at least there was to not worry about, setting aside the shrapnel wounds on his back.

All at once, lights flickered on, one after the other.

Being thrust into glaring brightness after getting used to the dark was not fun.

Now, however, the words written along the walls in red could clearly be deciphered.

 _Heiwajima-san. I hope you enjoyed your little trip. What were the hallucinations like, I wonder? Orihara-san certainly would have made the experience bearable for you._

 _I wonder if you finally tasted the fear of killing someone._

 _Feeling their life bleed out from under your hands, their fragile body going limp underneath you._

There was something else on the far wall, written in black as if it had only recently been added.

 _You spoke of Orihara-san dying cold and alone had you perished before._

 _It seems that had backfired on you._

After Heiwajima Shizuo recovered from the blinding brightness, he frowned in annoyance.

"Fuck you. I didn't kill the dumb fucking flea. I only knocked him unconscious. And even if I _did_ kill him - so what? I don't care."

In every corner of the room, there was the beady black eye of a camera watching them.

The constant dripping of water would be brought to Shizuo's attention. Beneath it sat a glass bowl, gradually filling to the brim with clear liquid. By it was a tray of a sizable amorphous gray lump, as well as a crisp white sheet stating, _'You're welcome.'_

Shizuo walked over to whatever the hell the water was dripping into.

"Some water and… some fuckin' sludge. What the hell is this? This our fuckin' food?"

The cameras seemed to be laughing at him with how they were zooming in and out. That, or it can be taken as a yes.

Shizuo takes a good, hard, 360 degree look around him. No exits, only walls. Taunting steel walls.

 _Damn. When can that shitty louse wake up?_

Shizuo grunted and crouched down to tear off a piece of that terrible-looking sludge, along with picking up the glass bowl, drinking some water out of it before putting it down.

He stood up and examined the gray lump.

 _Does this fuckin' thing even have any nutrients?_

He hesitantly put it next to his mouth and took a bite out of it, chewing on it a little.

Thankfully enough, it didn't taste unpleasant - just an odd blend of bitter and sweet. On the other hand, it had the consistency of slime, sticky and crumbling against the contact of teeth.

 _Eugh. This is terrible._ But he had to power through it, and popped the rest of it in his mouth. He savoured the strange taste, since he hadn't had anything in… awhile.

After swallowing the rest, he turned around to the flea and wondered if he had waken up yet.

Blood trickled down the side of Izaya's mouth, lips split and swollen. A small pool of the viscous liquid formed around his head, matting in the raven strands. A livid necklace of bruises stood out starkly against the pallor of his skin, and his shirt was spotted with stray drops of gasoline. Pink wax had solidified over his fingers, the skin around it an irritated red.

All in all though, the flea appeared calm, face ripped free of every mask he built.

The expression was so _unlike_ Izaya that it felt as though he could just sit up, lips sliding into an easy smirk, and laugh the whole situation off.

Izaya seemed so much better when he couldn't open his mouth.

 _Annoying. Whatever._ Shizuo walked over to the nearest steel wall, and looked right at it.

 _Seems easy enough._ He stretched his arm, pulled his fist back, and then…

As soon as his fist met the surface, there was a distinct crack - not of the metal crumpling like a tin can, but of Shizuo's knuckles slamming into something far tougher than himself.

"What the fuck?" He pulled back his fist. _What the hell's this made out of?_

Shizuo looked at the cameras, with a snarl on his face, then turned his head back to the wall.

Fuck.

Off to his side, there was a muffle click, and the floorboards began to collapse inward. Dust plumed up, and as it settled, sterile white stairs could be seen, descending beyond his vision.

"Eh?" Shizuo turned around, and found himself looking down at… stairs? What? How did…

"You fucks want me to go down there, huh." He turned around, and walked over to Izaya, putting on both their shoes before effortlessly picking him up and slinging him over his shoulder.

"Alright, whatever." After placing the coat on top of Izaya as well, he grabbed the food and drink before making his way downstairs.

 _What the hell is down here?_

After what could be anything from a couple of minutes to a couple of hours, Shizuo emerged in a room as white and clean as the stairway. There were two bulky chairs on either end of the room, a table in the center. Resting upon it were two sets of neatly folded crisp white clothes, as well as a card that said, "Sit down on the chairs when you're ready."

Shizuo walked over and set the flea down on the left chair while setting down the food and water on the table, as well as the disgusting coat.

He grabbed a set of white clothes and proceeded to… change his clothes, fully aware that there are probably cameras watching and that Izaya might wake up at any moment. Well, he didn't know when Izaya would wake up. He wasn't an expert on how long people were out of it when given concussions.

After that, he walked over to the wall next to the door and leaned against it.

 _'Sit down on the chairs when you're ready.' Izaya's still out. I'll wait._

However, as time seemed to pass, it was becoming rapidly apparent that the other wasn't going to wake up.

 _Fuck. Annoying._ Shizuo sighed.

He gave in and walked over to the right chair, taking his seat.

Almost instantly, metal shackles shot out from within the chair to grasp their wrists, legs, waist, and neck.

"Fuckin' hell…" Shizuo tried to tear off the metal shackle from his left hand, as a test to see how strong the metal was. However, it seemed to be made out of the same material as the walls upstairs.

Several minutes passed before a door slid open. A man dressed in a white suit padded in, wheeling in a cart concealed by a cloth. His own head was covered in a wrap-around mask, the orifices in the plastic plugged with semi-translucent fabric.

"Creepy fuck." Shizuo exclaimed with distaste. "The fuck you gonna do to us, huh?"

The only acknowledgement the man gave him was a jerk of his head in the blond's direction. Rather than speaking himself, a voice sounded from the speakers.

It was gruff, a deep self-satisfied baritone - one Izaya might have recognized had he been conscious.

With the lack of a voice-changer, it seemed the kidnappers were getting cocky.

"That is easy, Heiwajima-san. To put it bluntly, my friend here is going to inflict pain upon you. If you scream, he will divert his attention to Orihara-san. However, with the state he is in, I doubt he'll be able to ... pass the ball back to you." A pause, as if the man was considering his next words.

"The duration is one hour. You may begin."

"Fuck you."


	6. See No Evil, Hear No Evil

**Author's Note:** We're very sorry for the extra delay! We got caught up in stuff so we might've... accidentally delayed it a bit. Next chapter will have an early release in return, however! And always, thank you for reading!

* * *

 **See No Evil, Hear No Evil.**

Around ten minutes after the session had started, the torturer didn't seem to have gotten very far in cutting into Shizuo's skin, if the broken surgical scalpels and distinct lack of liters of blood were any indication.

The man had planned to start out slow and simple, gradually growing more and more brutal as time passed, yet _this …_ creature didn't seem susceptible to it at all.

Rather, Shizuo's expression would be neutral - albeit, it could be noted that a permanent annoyed frown was on his face at all times.

Under the mask, the stranger's expression was a picture of nervous excitement - the sort one gets when faced with the extraordinary. The cloth concealing the table he had brought with him was now discarded off the side, revealing odd-looking tools that glinted maliciously in the harsh lighting.

"You think you're gonna get anywhere with those?" Shizuo tch'd, again, a grin replacing the frown.

"This hour's gonna be easy." He said cockily. Would he be proven right or wrong? Only time would tell.

* * *

Minutes had passed, yet things seemed to be going nowhere. No matter how the man would try to cut and sever with weapons meant for serrating flesh, pulling out chunks of muscle, and crushing bone into dust, all he seemed to accomplish were thin superficial cuts that scabbed over almost as quickly as they formed.

He was definitely sweating underneath the disconcerting mask.

 _Perhaps I am involved in this game, too - seeing as how my tools are yet to achieve any progress on this… fascinating creature. Is this a game for you? How I would love to receive an answer._

As if the kidnapper sensed his thoughts, the eerie silence continued, every so often punctuated by Shizuo's commentary on the torturer's failure ("Even the doc could do this better than you.") or a ragged inhale coming from the otherwise silent informant across the room.

It was only when the speakers crackled with static did their attention divert.

"Heiwajima-san." It was the same voice as the one before, yet an odd mixture of boredom and amusement bled into his tone.

Shizuo turned his head to the speakers. "Eh? What do you want?" He asked, in an irritated tone. He just wanted this 'torture' to be over with, not because of pain - but because of how utterly _boring_ it was.

"Would you like me to tell you about Orihara-san?"

He rolled his eyes. "Sure. A flea's a flea, maybe you'll give me more reasons for that."

"Indeed … Orihara Izaya-san … Japanese, male, twenty four, born on May 4, 175 centimeters tall, 58 kilograms in weight, blood type O." He was almost starting to sound like the flea with the velvet smoothness tinged with mockery his voice took on.

 _58 kilograms, huh. What the fuck?_

"Nothin' I don't know already, pal."

"Hmm…" It sounded as though he was smiling. "What about his family then? His father is Orihara Shirou-san, mother is Orihara Kyouko-san, and two twin sisters Mairu-chan and Kururi-chan. Due to his parents being away overseas, he was the one to raise them. It is no wonder they turned out the way that they did."

 _His parents weren't there…?_

He took in a deep breath, not liking where this was going. "Continue."

"Curious now, are we? Do you know what he told the twins? Just to see what their response would be, he said to them in a way little kids would understand – that twins were the same, and that there was no point for them to live."

"... Sounds like something he'd fuckin' say, alright." Anger slowly started rising in the back of Shizuo's head, like a house being built brick-by-brick.

"Then they became the peculiar people they are today, making up in what the other lacked, choosing to embody 'humanity' by being perfect opposites, simply because of their older brother's experiment. He ruined his sisters, the same way you ruined your brother."

He scowled, "Hey, fuck you pal, I don't need to hear that shit coming from you."

A laugh. "Why? Because you already know it? With you being overemotional, your brother resigned to not showing emotion at all. Like a robot. No… like a puppet. It's no wonder he is able to assume any role he is given."

"Quit fuckin' talking about my brother like that, bastard."

"It's the truth. Maybe you'd like me to bring him here to ask him what he thinks? You could use the company."

" _Fuck you._ My brother doesn't fucking belong here. Leave him the hell alone."

"What about Tanaka Tom-san and Vorona-chan?"

"What the FUCK is your problem?!"

"I'm doing whatever it takes to make this game entertaining. They and _you_ are merely a means to my amusement, but you could say I have a certain grudge against your raven-haired companion. _Not_ that you are any innocent either. I doubt you would remember though. Two birds with one stone, no?"

Shizuo took in the words that he said, and thought for a moment…

"... What I did, I don't care." He looked at the louse, and sighed. _This guy's not any better than the flea. I should really kick his ass._ "Yeah, well, fuck you and your amusement."

A pause, before he continued, more self-satisfied than he had been before. "Ah, I digress. You hate Orihara-san, but not enough to kill him. I'm sure you're aware of his work with the Yakuza. I did some asking around about him, and I found quite interesting bits of information. Did you know how he talked to lonely, troubled girls, made them trust him, and talked them into committing suicide with him? He would either convince them to jump, or he would use his warped nature to explain how they didn't really want to die."

"... bastard," he muttered under his breath. _Izaya, you scumbag._

"He would also talk people into killing others. His job as an informant makes it easy to manipulate people, choosing to unveil the right information at the right time and neglecting enough to keep things interesting for him."

"Tch, I can't believe this…" _He's a much bigger flea than I thought._

"He didn't only ruin your life or his sisters' lives. Does it make you angry?"

"The fuck do you think's the answer, buddy?" There was _definitely_ anger in his voice.

A sort of resigned sigh. "All I have is a very small request for you."

 _Sick fuck. I know what it's gonna be. I know what he's gonna ask me._

But Shizuo posed the question that need not asking anyway.

"What?"

"Scream."

"You'll scream when I cave your fucking skull in, asshole." Shizuo's tone quickly turned into apparent resentment towards his kidnapper.

The man couldn't help but laugh. "As expected of Ikebukuro's monster … Unless I'm mistaking you for the Black Rider. At any rate, I'll be sure to keep that in mind." There were a series of multiple taps on the tabletop. "Do you think Orihara-san would go after your kid brother?"

"..." His eyes fixated on the unconscious raven, but he didn't respond.

"Do you think _I_ would go after your brother?"

"What did I say? Don't touch _my_ fucking _brother_." Slowly, his voice was raising.

The man clearly started ignoring him. "He would make quite the leverage."

"If you have Kasuka I'll fucking _kill_ you."

"I never considered myself a man to believe in friendship. It's merely the resultant of parallel wants, no? Dressed in a nice word to make it seem benign. Though I'm sure I can have a little bit of fun with Kasuka-kun. He wouldn't be quite as handsome if he were missing all his teeth."

 _He's full of shit, there's no way he'd have Kasuka._

Shizuo didn't respond, only trying to calm himself down.

"It would be quite easy for me, you know. If it makes you feel any better, once Kasuka-kun's body is discovered, I will make it so that Orihara-san takes the fall."

"You don't have my fucking brother, asshole."

"Want to bet?"

 _No…_ "..."

"I'm sure he will be very touched to know his elder brother cares so much about him."

Shizuo's breath became ragged, and he practically yelled at the speaker. " _DON'T TOUCH MY FUCKING BROTHER!"_ He rattled in his chair, attempting to yet again break the bonds restraining him - but to no avail.

Silence, shortly followed by a chirp of delight.

"Aha! There we go, Heiwajima-san! Not the scream I had in mind, but it works. Please, proceed to Orihara-san. There isn't much time to waste with only ten minutes left."

The tormentor backed away from Shizuo nervously, as if the restraints would come undone, yet he obeyed, pushing his cart to the limp informant.

Shizuo's gaze turned to the torturer, and eyes that tinted murderous red stared directly at him.

"WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, I'LL SHOVE THOSE FUCKING TOOLS DOWN YOUR THROAT!"

Being yelled at by the blond wasn't doing anything to soothe the man's frayed nerves. He lamented his failure to achieve anything with the man, yet at least he had the experience of coming across such a fascinating being.

Shizuo was far more interesting than all the others he had to provide this treatment for.

At any rate, he picked up the scalpel with a firm grip and pressed it to the informant's collarbone. Blood began to bead down, and the torturer let out a small sigh as the tension in his chest loosened - a regular person, something he was used to.

Meanwhile, Shizuo had been attempting to calm down; still rattling in his chair in vain, but he had mostly recollected his thoughts.

 _Fuck. This is bad. He might die. Ten minutes is way too much time._

The torturer began to unwind into the familiar movements. He first carved a smile into the raven's face from ear to ear - it would cause frown lines if the informant were to grimace so intently. With a pretty face like that, surely it wouldn't do.

Blood began to spot his white gloves, drizzling down the other's pale jaw.

He slowly slid down a scalpel along Izaya's left arm, and for a moment, considered creating some kind of pattern on it - like a painter. _No, he wants him alive ..._

 _Fucking flea, wake up already. Scream. Yell. Wake the fuck UP!_

 _Well …_ The man dressed in white began to screw a pair of wooden blocks with long, metallic spikes over Izaya's left knee. _It must be fine if he can't use one leg, right?_

At the sight of that _thing,_ Shizuo rattled in his chair as hard as he could, and for a moment, one could swear some of the metal _creaked;_ yet it remained still.

"One, two …" The blocks snapped together, and the spikes grinded into the skin, shredding the thin layer covering the muscle - blood splattered his clothes and the ground, as they tore into the muscle as well, ripping apart the tendons located. Had Izaya been awake, he would have passed out from extremely excruciating pain; as the spikes brought themselves down on the bone, chipping against the white surface.

Once the torturer had pulled it out, what remained was a bloody mangled mess of a knee, barely holding onto the lower leg, as it simply dangled from where it was. Blood, skin, muscle, and bone found itself onto the formerly clean floor, turning it into a torturer's version of abstract art.

Shizuo winced, hell, one could say that he felt _bad_ for Izaya. He really hated the flea, but something like _this?_ Not even the louse could do something as fucked up as this. It twisted his stomach, and he nearly vomited.

 _If Izaya was awake, if I didn't knock him out…_

 _Regret_ struck him. Regret for becoming so angry, so easily. Regret for letting this happen.

The torturer began to cut away the stained fabric of Izaya's shirt. He peeled away the dark fabric glued to the informant's skin in sweat, and if one could focus, they could hear the small uncharacteristic groans coming from the unconscious man. His expression was tight, eyes crinkled shut in pain, and he squirmed into the chair as if meaning to escape with breaths harsh and shaky.

 _Hmm… I wonder ..._ The torturer grasped what appeared to be a long rod consisting of sharp, curled spikes - the Spanish Tickler, not unlike a cat's paw.

With the informant's narrow chest, he dug in the points, pulling back to tear flesh away from bone. Pearlescent flesh was rent apart by red, like a canvas artistically torn to shreds.

Izaya's ribcage began to rattle, the sounds of pain he emitted much louder yet nowhere close to a yell. Rivulets of sweat wore clean paths among the field of red, like rainwater washing away impurities.

All at once, he stilled.

"Oh no, he might actually die. This won't do. I could get fired, or worse, punished …" It was as the torturer said this sadly that an alarm went off, signifying the end. Just as quietly as he walked into the room, he walked back out, the squeak of wheels against the floor deafeningly loud in the heavy silence. However, a tray of medicinal equipment was left next to the single pile of white clothes.

At the threshold of the door, the man turned back to admire the sight.

One side of the room, as clean and white and undisrupted as a field of linen snow broken by hint of gold, while on the other, a garishly beautiful portrait splattered in cherry reds and scarlets, roses and crimsons, with a nice touch of pale creamy white and simple swath of black.

* * *

Shizuo could only stare in anger and horror. There was nothing he could do. And this time… it was… well, it was mostly his fault.

He didn't know how to react when the torturer bloodied open his knee, or when he tore into his chest. He sat there, in stunned silence, only being able to look down at his feet to conceal his eyes from whatever the hell was going on. All he could hear were the wet sounds of flesh hitting the floor, and the noises of pain emanating from Izaya.

 _I can't take this shit. I can't take one single fucking minute more of this._

And as if saved by the bell, the alarm went off, ending the torture session.

 _It's over. Finally._

The door slid shut behind the torturer. With a resounding _click_ , their bindings retracted into the chairs.

Izaya slumped forward onto the ground.

It took ten seconds before Shizuo recollected his mind and decided to stand up, eyes fixed to the limp body.

 _This is my fault. All of it's my fault._ The twisting in his stomach only intensified when he stared at the bloodied flea. _What was he thinking, fucking with me like that?_

His eyes snapped to the tray of medicinal equipment, and with shaky steps managed to tread his way over to examine what exactly was on it.

Antiseptic, a sewing needle and threads, bandages, painkillers, a lighter, a strip of metal, a syringe of anesthesia … The list grew on. Next to it rested a pink card and a nice shiny bone-saw with a concise note - ' _Tick tock.'_

Shizuo's chest felt icy cold when he looked at the bone-saw. _You're a sick fuck, whoever you are._

He took deep breaths to try and control himself, prevent himself from trying to punch anything, be it the chair, the wall, the floor, the table…

 _Don't think about that. Think about patching the louse up._

His eyes turned to the items needed to patch up his chest, it certainly needed to be cleaned, sewed, bandaged… shit. _Maybe I should have asked Shinra a few lessons about how to patch people up, instead of sending them to the hospital._

As carefully as he could, however, Shizuo, at a glacial pace, began using the various tools at his disposal to salvage Izaya's bloodied chest. It wasn't _horrible,_ but it was certainly bad.

It felt like an eternity while Shizuo scrubbed the blood off Izaya, kicking away the flesh and bone shards on the ground with disgust, he poured the antiseptic on Izaya's wounds.

Almost instantly, his expression soured, the bloody grin carved on his face making it appear far more sardonic. What could have been a yelp escaped from his lips, and he attempted to struggle away.

Shizuo responded with a tired sigh, "Quit that shit out, flea…" he muttered, not having enough energy to be motivated.

After that, he… Shizuo swallowed. He picked up the sewing needle and thread, and… began to close the wounds on his chest, piercing through the flesh with… unnerving ease.

 _It's like tissue paper._

At this point, he didn't care what the flea did. He focused on what he was supposed to do, and with careful - yet nervous - precision, managed to sew closed the wounds and bandage them.

He leaned backwards to stretch himself out after leaning in for so long. He certainly didn't like the physical contact he had to make, his fingers brushing up against the skin of Izaya, it felt… discomforting. But it was something he had to do.

He grumbled when he looked at the grin carved into Izaya, and wiped the blood off it.

 _Should I put the antiseptic in that?_ _Whatever._

He tipped a very thin but steady liquid of antiseptic onto the wounds - Overkill? He wasn't sure. - but that wouldn't have any side effects, right?

Probably.

After that, he stepped back and put the bottle back onto the tray, his eyes swaying over to the knee.

For what seemed like an eternity, it felt like all Shizuo did was stare right in the middle of the mess of flesh and bone, disgust convulsing in his stomach..

 _Don't think. Just do it. Anaesthetic, saw, burn, bandage… ? Fuck._

Shizuo felt irritated at his own mind failing him.

 _Don't think. Don't think._

When he reached his hand towards the anaesthesia, and stuck it somewhere in Izaya's leg where it seemed fit, he didn't think.

When he grabbed the saw and placed it right above the mess of a knee, he didn't think.

He didn't think about how easy it was to cut through the flesh.

He didn't think when he saw all the blood splattering onto the leg, the floor, his own clothes. He didn't think. He tried not to care.

When he cauterized the wound and bandaged it, he didn't think.

When he ran over to a nearby wall to vomit, he didn't think.

When he wiped his mouth and moved Izaya to his chair, he didn't think.

When he sat against the wall on his side, and leaned his head against a hand of his, taking ragged breaths, he _did_ think.

 _I'm sorry. I had to. I had to._


	7. Give And Take, Makes Good Friends

**Give And Take, Makes Good Friends.**

Orihara Izaya dreamed of fire.

He dreamed of it clogging his throat, dripping off his jaw like molasses, onto his chest, down his legs, turning all it touched into black char.

He opened his mouth to scream, and if there was anything more _pathetic_ than a cry out in pain, it was the soft whimper that came out instead.

The fire swirled in and out of focus, an entrancing maelstrom of burnt oranges and reds intermingled with fine, powdery ash.

He watched as the burning concentrated on a single point - the joint of his left knee. Just as thought he had adjusted to the foreign, agonizing sensation, a cool golden blanket settled across him, snuffing out the fire.

With it came a dreamless sleep.

* * *

After an indeterminate amount of time, Izaya found himself blinking blearily up to harsh, fluorescent light.

His mind and senses were sluggish as they readjusted to consciousness. His nose crinkled at the stench of flesh and blood, and when he realized it was coming from _himself_ …

Izaya barely managed to lean over the armrest to empty whatever was left in his gut rather than choke on his own vomit. When he finished, he wiped the back of his mouth with his sleeve, swallowing back the pungent taste with a wince.

He didn't feel pain, yet he knew by the distinct numbness in his leaden body that he should have been.

Izaya began to check himself. A blood-crusted hand lifted to his cheek, where a thin cut spread from ear to ear. It wasn't deep and had scabbed over, judging by the rough sensation. _Good. It won't leave a mark._

His eyes trailed down to his narrow chest - his shirt was replaced by bandages. _Huh. Wonder what sort of trouble Shizu-chan got me in for me to end up like this ..._

It was when his gaze touched his legs did Izaya stop. His chest shuddered once, like a cave collapsing inward, panic and disbelief blurring his vision, and he felt his throat closing up - closing, closing, closing on the invisible fire that was so clear in his dream, and he choked. The room was spinning, a smear of white interlaced with red. An unfamiliar stinging smoldered in the back of his eyes, yet they remained dry.

His breaths came faster with the attempts to get oxygen in his lungs, to thaw the blood in his veins freezing over, and he swallowed thickly over the taste of bile in his mouth, breath uneven, tentative.

The heels of his hands pressed to the back of his eyes, sparkles starbursting in the inky darkness. He could still feel like it was _there_ , but every time he glanced down to check, whatever desperate hope this wasn't _happening_ would be dashed.

Hesitant, trembling fingers caked in rusted blood leaned down, as if to touch his lower leg, only to grasp at empty air. His fingers clenched into a fist, then knotted in his matted hair as he keeled over himself, shivering.

It started out slowly ...

A soft wheeze, arms moving to clutch himself as if he were holding something in. The shuddering became a more consistent bounce of his shoulders, a lift of his bandaged torso.

… then happened all at once.

Incredulous laughter bubbled up, echoing hollowly in the room as it increased in crescendo, increased in intensity, increased in mania.

Izaya laughed-

And laughed-

And laughed.

He laughed until his chest ached, until his throat was worn and scratchy, until a sound not unlike a sob ripped free, and then he curled over himself and was silent.

His eyes were still dry and a smile curved his lips, elongated unnervingly by the cuts marring his face, yet his body was still shaking, gaze fixed to the stump.

Time passed, the seconds shooting through the still air like bullets.

Then, very slowly, Izaya's head lifted, expression impassive yet rustic eyes burning in fury. His voice was thin yet as sharp as piano wire. "It's true that Shizu-chan can't help but destroy everything he touches, ne?" He smiled terribly. "Just when I was starting to feel left out."

Shakily, he lifted damp strands of hair away from his forehead. "Did you enjoy it?" A short exhale of breath, like a huff. "Silly question. I'm sure you did, making sure the one person you could never catch never stand up again. Not like before." A tremor in his chest. "Shizu-chan is always finding ways to become more of a monster than he already is. I should commend you for living up to my expectations. You crippled me. All you have left now is to kill me."

He gestured idly at himself. "Go ahead. You always said you would. Why not follow through?"

Shizuo was eerily quiet. He sat against the wall, one knee raised up, the other on the floor. He was looking down at the ground, chin dipped down to his chest in a mixture of sadness and regret.

It was only after Izaya told him to follow through did he respond, in a resigned, despondent tone.

"You're awake."

"So it seems."

"I had to, Izaya. I had to." A headache had started to grow in the back of Shizuo's head. _I need some cigarettes._

Izaya's tone was scathing, lathered in venom and sharpened to an edge. "Don't tell me you feel _guilty_? The only reason why I'm not applauding you right now is because I'm in the sort of state that disallows me to. I'm sure you enjoyed it."

Silence, for a few seconds, before Shizuo reluctantly spoke again.

" _No,_ " he barely managed to croak out, his voice shaky and leaden with guilt. "I didn't _enjoy_ it."

A scoff. "Why'd you do it then? Do enlighten me on _how it came to this._ "

Shizuo swallowed the lump in his throat and raised his head up to meet Izaya's piercing gaze. "They have Kasuka." He didn't like mentioning that detail. "They were going to torture him. And they threatened to have Tom-san and Vorona too."

"' _Have?_ '" His fingernails dug hard into his fists in a vain effort to compose himself.

"... What did you want me to do? Take the risk that they were just bluffing?"

" _I don't believe this."_ The words were whispered, and Izaya's jaw worked as he raised his voice. "So this-" A gesticulation at the cuts on his face, bandages on his chest, and finally the amputated limb. "-was the product of you _acting_ on the baseless assumption that they had your brother?"

Shizuo glared at Izaya in hate. "He's my _brother_. And I couldn't fucking contain myself." It was true, the moment they mentioned his brother was a guaranteed success since hearing Kasuka's name would usually send him into rage. "I care about him a hell of a lot more than I care about _you,_ " he seethed, grounding his teeth together.

"Surprise, surprise~" A flash of teeth, a mocking laugh with just the undercurrent of menace. "Shizu-chan couldn't _fucking_ contain himself. And here I thought you had the faintest inkling of rationality, but I'm proved wrong yet again. It is a comfort to know you'd throw me under the bus as soon as things get _mildly_ confusing for you."

Shizuo clenched his fists so hard the knuckles went white. " _Fuck off,"_ he whispered, taking a ragged breath in the process. "You wouldn't understand, because you're _you_. I fucking cut your leg off, and I can't change that. I'm _sorry._ I'm fucking _sorry._ " Another shaky breath. "What do you want me to fucking _do?_ " He growled, getting up to his feet.

 _My head fucking hurts. I really need a pack right about now._ The mild headache turned into a throbbing one, and he barely managed to restrain the pain by biting into the invisible, feeling like his teeth would break and shatter against each other with how hard he was pressing them.

"You have no _right_ to be sorry, and besides, it means _nothing_ if you just say it." The corner of his lips curled back. "Though I know now what it takes to get Shizu-chan to want to kill me. All I have to do is mention his _kid brother._ Send a few kidnappers or murderers after him if I'm feeling adventurous."

"Oi, what's your fucking _problem?!_ " _Don't pass out_. _Don't let him know._ "You really trying to push me over the fucking edge, eh?!" _Don't let him know about the headache. And don't fucking pass out._

" _Gee_ , you noticed? I didn't think that was within your capabilities." Izaya leaned back, feigning nonchalance, struggling to control his pulse and his hitching breaths. "Go ahead. Get angry. Give me more reasons for others to condemn you, for me to hate you, to want to make your life a living hell." His chin tilted up. "I _dare_ you."

" _Fuck you._ " His fist pulled back, but not enough to be an effective punch. "You already gave _me_ enough fucking reasons to hate you. To _despise you._ You know how many? _Ten fucking years worth._ "

"Then one more day isn't going to make a difference, ne~?" He widened his eyes in an imitation of surprise. "Except here we have the _monster_ turning on its creator, and in that, has finally become one. Final hurdle to jump."

"I'm not going to give you the satisfaction, flea," he grumbled.

"Ah~" His head listed forward. "But you already did when you lopped off my leg, no? I only regret not seeing your face when you did it. You must have worn the most _hideous_ expression." Izaya entertained the thought. "Twisted sneer, furious passionate eyes, face red, mouth frothing, because _this_ is the moment you finally had a victory over me."

Shizuo was genuinely stunned. So that's what he thought he was like during that? He cupped a hand behind the back of his head, in some vain attempt to soothe the pain. "Victory?" He sounded like he was in disbelief, but a part of him figured that _he should've expected this, the obvious._ "What _victory?_ "

"As soon as you made me lose my leg, I lost my right to compete with you. _That_ is what you win." His pulse was deafeningly loud in his ears, face flushed red in his fury. " _Oh_ , but don't worry; I'll pay you back. Unlike you, I don't need brawn to kill you in the most _vicious, chaotic way possible_."

"I didn't win _anything_. You know what I want?" He took a step forward. "I want you to leave me the fuck alone. After all _this?_ Maybe I'll break your **other** leg too so that you can figure out why you should quit fucking with my life." His heart threatened to shoot out of his ribs, and the headache wasn't doing him any favors. _Calm down. Don't ram the fucker's head through the wall._

Izaya's breath hitched, expression contorting, and he worked past the lump in his throat to snarl, "Like you need _my_ help ruining your life. _You've got that covered on your own."_ At the sound of his own voice - his smooth, airy tone that had been reduced to a low growl - his expression flickered between bewilderment and disgust. His throat bobbed, but he didn't dare look away from Shizuo. Arrogant. Taunting.

The mix between pain and anger bubbling up inside Shizuo clouded his mind. He swallowed hard. "You… fuck you. FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, IZAYA! _WHY DO YOU THINK MY LIFE IS SO FUCKED UP IN THE FIRST PLACE?! YOU THINK_ _ **I'M**_ _THE ONLY CAUSE HERE?"_ He was bordering on the edge of beating the hell out of Izaya until he saw red, and he barely kept himself at bay as he took another step forward, inching dangerously near Izaya.

A fluid, one-shouldered shrug.

"Yes."

Like a switch being turned on, Shizuo reeled a fist back and sent it flying towards Izaya's face … yet, at the last moment, he redirected it into the back of the chair, shockwaves rippling outward on impact and leaving a significant dent in the metal.

Izaya had stayed so carefully still, not so much as moving as strands of hair were displaced by the rush of air. He did, however, now have an up and close view on Shizuo's expression, and liking what what he saw, he grinned.

Shizuo took in deep breaths, telling himself to calm down, and to ignore the ever-so- _painful_ headache throbbing through the entirety of his mind. He just wanted to forget about this. To fall into unconsciousness. _Sleep and not wake up._

But he reminded himself of what would happen if that were to occur. The people he would leave behind, and the fact he would give Izaya the ultimate satisfaction. _No. I won't kill him…_ _**Not yet.**_

With the maelstrom of his own thoughts, Izaya hadn't noticed Shizuo's growing migraine; at least, up until now, with what the muted indications of pain.

Shizuo swore under his breath when he pulled the fist back, the skin 'peeling' off the metal. He gave Izaya a scowl and stepped back.

Izaya's blood still simmered, heartbeat pressed to his ears, and yet he forced himself to _breathe_. That the anger would be stored away in a neat file tucked into his mind, that he would call upon it once he demanded vengeance. His ragged breathing began to even out, his smile growing easier to maintain.

"If…" Shizuo trailed off, rubbing his eyes together in frustration. _No. Not here, not now._ "Nevermind."

' _If?'_ "Has Shizu-chan's headache drove him to delirium?" Izaya lightly thumped his knuckles against the brute's forehead, but with the distinct throbbing …

Shizuo brushed Izaya's hand off his forehead - with a little more force than necessary - "Fuck off. That hurts."

"Want me to kiss the boo-boo and make it all better~?" Despite his tone retrogressing into normalcy, the teasing hadn't quite yet reached his eyes.

"You want me to give you a fucking _concussion_ , flea? I'm fine." He huffed, and turned his gaze to the contents available to the both of them - leftover food, painkillers, various other things.

Izaya exhaled, eyelids lowering minutely as he forcefully eyed the stump. From now own, he had a permanent physical reminder of what the monster could do, a reminder that Izaya had to be the one to _end him._

 _No… I won't kill you the first chance I get._

 _I will_ _ **hurt**_ _you until you get down on your knees and_ _ **beg**_ _me to end your miserable existence._

 _And I will refuse, to prolong your suffering until you do it yourself. Even then, that will not be enough to pay you back for what you had done to me._

 _You can count on this, Shizu-chan._

 _I will be the one to_ **break** _you._

 _But for now… for now… I'll be patient. I will plant all the seeds necessary, and then I'll make you fall._

Izaya's gaze lifted up, hiding his thoughts behind layers upon layers of arrogance. "Did you do it to satisfy your warped view on heroism?"

"Heroism? There's no heroes here. I did it because I didn't want to leave you to die, then and there. Because I felt guilty about nearly killing you back there. A lot of reasons. You're a flea; a scumbag, but I'm not going to let you die or kill you just because you've…" He trailed off. He wasn't sure how to continue that. "Whatever."

"Hmm …" His expression shifted to vague thoughtfulness. The pain had yet to return. He jerked his chin at the speakers. "What about them? Do you want to kill them?"

"..." Shizuo looked up at Izaya with a small frown. "Yeah, of course I fucking do. That's a stupid fucking question, flea."

A beat as Izaya dismissed the insult. "I wouldn't kill our abductors. I would merely give them a fate worse than death and watch them collapse into ruin, the way only humans can."

Shizuo looked back down at the ground. "Didn't expect anything else, coming from you."

"Glad to see you have such _high_ expectations of me, as I have of you."

"Go fuck yourself. I don't care, and your _expectations_ of me don't matter."

His jaw worked, irritation spiking momentarily. "Oh, they do. As you can see, I can't _walk_ , and our kidnappers are so insistent on the two of us moving together. What I think and expect of you _definitely_ matters."

Silence.

Izaya bit back a wince as he felt a throb of pain break through the fog created by anesthetics heavy in his mind. He pressed a hand to his temple in an effort to detach himself from the pain. There had to be some pills that can help with that, yet the informant didn't seem very inclined to ask.

Shizuo raised his head once he heard palm meet head. "That makes two of us, then." _Us,_ he echoed in his mind.

The informant leaned his head back into the chair, crusted bandages itching his chest. The question left his lips with the intention of diverting the other's attention, as well as to satisfy the mild curiosity prickling the back of his neck. Or was that more feeling being restored? He wasn't quite so sure at this point. "What would you have done had I died?"

He gave Izaya a morose frown - "Why do you care?" - afterwards grabbing the painkillers and popping them open. "You need these."

"I can swallow them dry." His smile sharpened as his voice pitched down into flirtation, hoping to incite a reaction even as the words tasted as caustic as hydrochloric acid.

It seemed like whatever Izaya said slipped past Shizuo's mind ( _Such a pity.)_ , as he dropped out two pills into his palm. "Two's enough. You need some clothes, too. There's food and water on the table as well."

Izaya's fingers curled over the pills minutely before he tipped his head back and swallowed them. They definitely didn't go down well, if the way he involuntarily grasped his throat for a second before releasing it said anything.

 _Dumbass._ He popped out two pills for himself and grabbed the bowl of water, using some of it to swallow the pills as easily as he could. _Takes around thirty minutes._

"Shizu-chan sure does miss his cancer sticks... Clothes then?" His own stench was starting to irritate him, so he finally conceded to asking, as much as it grated at his pride.

Shizuo grabbed the pile of clothes and set it neatly on Izaya's lap, afterwards walking over to the nearby corner to face the wall.

"I'm not watching you change, flea."

"Oh, how you disappoint me. Shizu-chan is such a prude to have this opportunity in front of him yet not take it." Izaya began to pull the crisp white shirt over his head.

"Shut the fuck up and hurry up."

"Hai, hai." When his hands reached the hem of his pants, he hesitated only for a moment before lifting himself up with a hand on the armrest and tugging the fabric off, careful as his fingers brushed the stump.

And all at once, the emotion he had filed away came flooding back.

He bit his tongue hard enough for it to bleed, nausea blurring his vision.

 _Detachment, detachment, detachment. You're a god. This is just a … minor setback. Once you regain control of yourself, you'll be_ fine.

A short, calming exhale as his eyes darted around, memorizing the room, searching for anything that could stand out. _Alright,_ think. _It seems our captor wants us to destroy each other sooner than he can, if these stages he's putting us through are any indication._

 _By this point, he can clearly see I'm at a physical disadvantage with my mobility compromised, and it must be uninteresting to watch Shizu-chan drag me around. Not that I would put it past him to injure me in this state, though I suppose Shizu-chan would be more apprehensive now that I can't dart away._

…

A lump of emotion was heavy in his throat, though he was quick to swallow it down and let a grin lift his features.

His wandering gaze finally settled on the bulk of the chair, which seemed more like a metal box with armrests and a backrest attached. _If my analysis is correct, then he must have left me a present, somewhere the protozoan is too stupid enough to look, much less_ consider _looking._

Izaya rubbed off brown flecks of old blood and glanced towards Shizuo in all his gory glory. "You look terrible."

"That's the first time I've heard you say something without trying to piss me off."

Shizuo's back was still turned to him. Taking that as an invitation, Izaya shifted his leg to the side and leaned over. His fingers slipped down the chair, tracing the seams where the sides of it came together. Once he brushed the floor, he dug his nails into the ridge and tugged. Like a door, it popped open, and Izaya grinned in satisfaction.

 _The thought wouldn't even pass his mind._

He reached in, one hand closing over a cool metal form …

… and pulled out a lightweight, snub-nose, .44 magnum revolver, that fit into his palm as easily as his switchblade did.

 _Ah~ How lethal and tiny._

One more check had five bullets settled in his lap, gleaming like freshly polished jewelry. _Enough to fill up the five-chambered gun._ There was a little note with a simple disconcerting smiley-face, and Izaya's expression mirrored it.

With the excess fabric of the white trousers hanging off his left knee, he thickly bundled both the bullets and the revolver up and neatly knotted it off. The weight made the cloth sag more than it would have been had it been empty, yet his concealed carry was decently disguised, enough that the brute wouldn't even dare to notice.

Izaya bit his lower lip, keeping his smirk from growing wider that it already had and schooled his features into normalcy. "Consider it my first step into friendship, ne?" The sarcasm couldn't have been more obvious had it been written right across his face.

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "Are you done?"

"Mhm~ A shower would be nice though." There was the vague sound of shuffling, as if … as if …

"Yeah, well," Shizuo began to turn around. "Better get used to-OI! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO DO?!"

"Think with all your single brain cell, Shizu-chan." Izaya had one hand supporting himself against the chair, his weight settling onto his remaining leg. If he didn't _look_ , he could still imagine that it was firmly planted there. _Phantom limbs are such a pain ... At least the gun isn't too heavy; just uncomfortable. I can work with this._

Shizuo growled in annoyance as he walked over to Izaya, nearly stumbling due to the headache, and put a hand on the side of his torso. "Sit. Down. You need to eat and drink before we go anywhere; and I'm carrying you until we find a crutch, or something like one."

 _And there you go soiling my semi-good mood._ With his free hand, Izaya caught Shizuo's and shoved it away - or tried to, at least. "I won't eat, and I'm _not_ going to reduce myself to such a humiliating position. We have enough of humiliation to go around as it is, with _you_ being here."

Shizuo was tired of Izaya's endless pride, and his grip on Izaya's torso tightened. "I don't fucking care. You're going to feed yourself, or else you'll fucking starve _._ Quit being so fucking stupid, flea."

"There's enough of _that_ to go around as well." He exhaled, gaze dropping to the side. "Do I have to spell out everything for you? I won't be able to keep it down, so I won't eat."

Shizuo's grip weakened slightly, and his expression softened. "You have to, sometime or another. Same with drinking."

 _Don't you_ dare _look at me like that._ "...Water is fine."

Shizuo sighed. "Okay. I'll bring the food with us, after you're done." He carefully let go and hoped that Izaya had the common sense to take that as a sign to sit down.

Izaya shifted his hold on the chair. The foreign pressure of the revolver on his upper leg had eased slightly as his body began to adjust to the added weight. His other leg definitely wasn't used to carrying his full weight, though. Tiny beads of sweat from exertion trickled down the side of his face. His expression flickered once, and he quickly shut his eyes to regain his composure. Without much argument, he turned and settled back into the chair, fingers splayed out on either side as if it were his throne. Controlling his voice, he called out, "Shizu-chan~? The water?"

Shizuo was about to retort with a ' _Just reach over and grab the bowl, don't be fucking lazy,'_ but that was cut short when he stared at Izaya's stump for two seconds, before rubbing his eyes and grabbing the bowl with his free hand, moving it over for the other to take.

Izaya shook his head once. "That isn't what I meant, you know." He parted his lips and tapped them. _I wonder if he'll have it dropped on me ..._

Shizuo raised an eyebrow, an expression of confusion overtaking him. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Lift the bowl up and tip it down for me to drink. I'm _much_ too tired, after having my leg lopped off and all." _It is like a game of tug and war_ , he mused. _Know when to pull harder and when to let the rope go slack._

Shizuo stared at him and grumbled, "You can lift the bowl with your hands, I'm pretty sure."

Izaya bit the inside of his cheek to keep his smile from spreading further. "Eh? I wouldn't want to test that theory. What if I ended dropping it on myself and we would be out of good drinking water, hmm? Shizu-chan is so selfish." He wasn't making Shizuo's slowly ebbing away headache feel any better.

 _Fuck, it's like talking to a nine year old who knows the dictionary._ "You'd probably drop it on purpose anyway." Shizuo figured that Izaya having water poured into his mouth by _him_ probably meant that Izaya's pride had been damaged enough so that he'd prop it up as the first idea.

He clicked his tongue. "Now why would I do that, silly beast? I simply want to observe you doing something a slave would do for his higher-upper."

A vein throbbed on Shizuo's forehead, and he grit his teeth. The way he was gripping the bowl made the metal bowl audibly groan, as he set it down on the table next to Izaya.

"You know what? You do whatever you fucking want to, flea. I don't care if you don't have enough energy to drink."

"'You have to, sometime or another. Same with drinking,'" he parroted, doing his best Shizuo-impression. "So predictable of you to never follow through. You haven't _once_ executed any of your threats either. You were close though, today, so maybe I should give you the benefit of the doubt."

 _Tch. Fucking louse._ Shizuo crossed his arms, and glared at Izaya. "I'm giving you one minute to drink that, and when the time's up, we're leaving."

Izaya rolled his eyes. "Tick tock, ne? We're certainly in a hurry to continue our torment. Be useful and pack the medical supplies at least." He accepted the bowl into his hands and smiled at Shizuo from over the rim before tipping it back to take a sip.

 _Huh._ "Expected you to wait the whole minute and not do it." At least, Shizuo could pack the supplies like Izaya said.

"Well, I couldn't _help_ myself with you growling at me~" _And I'm thirsty._ He tried not to get too greedy with the liquid - it would be unbefitting for it to trail down his chin in fervent desperation, like how it must have been if Shizuo were to become dehydrated. His monstrous body had needs, after all.

The image of Shizuo kneeling down on all fours and lapping away at a bowl of water flashed in his mind, and Izaya's lips twitched at how well it worked.

Shizuo decided not to respond, and rather, grabbed Izaya's slightly-burnt coat and scooped up the remaining medical supplies to deposit into the middle of his coat.

 _Let's see… what's here that could be useful…_

There was the sludge, lighter, left-over bandages and antiseptic, and the container of painkillers. Then there was the blood-crusted saw and used syringe that could be _quite_ the unorthodox weapons.

Shizuo grabbed the food, lighter, bandages, antiseptic and painkillers, but left the saw and syringe alone. He didn't need those. _Maybe Izaya would… no, I don't think he would._

After that, he wrapped the coat around the items and gave it his best shot to knot it closed, hoping to turn it into a makeshift bag.

"Is Shizu-chan abusing my coat? Why is it singed anyway?"

Shizuo looked up at Izaya, who had the nearly empty bowl set down in his lap and a shit-eating grin on his face, and stared at him.

"Think beyond your tunnel vision for once, flea. Why do you _think_ it's singed?"

"Shizu-chan can't take a joke."

"Yeah, because you make everyone laugh, louse."

"At least I don't send them to the hospital," he retorted dryly. "Have you been told that you are quite the charmer?"

 _At least I don't send them to the mental asylum._ "Have you been told that you're fucking annoying?" He walked over to Izaya.

"Multiple times a day, by Shizu-chan in particular." He swirled the remaining water around idly.

Shizuo glanced over at the food. "Still can't eat, flea? The hell's up with that?"

He waved a hand dismissively and jerked his chin towards the staircase they must have gone down from. Not that he would know for sure, given he wasn't conscious at that time, but it was easy to infer. "Seems that is our route. I would expect something changed up there, considering how they're sending us back the way we came." He drummed his fingertips on the bowl, eyes anywhere else but what he knew by the blood was his chair. He knew if he focused, he would see his limb discarded off the side, wrapped in the black fabric of his jeans.

His gaze refocused purposely, a measured calm.

Izaya spoke slowly, as if to a child, "Shizu-chan, I can assume that I missed a torture session. By the leverage they had on you, as well as your presence here, I can also assume that they have quite the manpower. We're also in an underground facility by the looks of it – no cheap feat." The movement of his fingers ceased, and he turned his gaze back to Shizuo's. "What details do you recall? Any method of identification?"

Shizuo wasn't happy that Izaya waved off the lack of eating food, but he decided to give it a shot as to what he could recall.

He pushed up his glasses, "Well… the metal we were being held back with was something I couldn't break through; the walls were made out of that as well. No identification that I remember. The guy sent here to torture us wore white clothes and had a wrap-around mask. That's about it."

 _They certainly have some funding._ On different circumstances, he would have taunted Shizuo for the unable-to-break-something gist, yet his mind was busy at work. "His style doesn't narrow it down much, considering most of the men I know have a passion for dramatic flair. I'm guessing he gave some vague motive?"

Shizuo responded with a sharp "No," followed by "He said it was just for his amusement. Well… I guess hurting you was his motive."

Izaya sighed, as if he came across something unpleasant but was forced to accept it anyway. "And to make you feel guilty." His fingers clenched over the lip of the bowl. "He certainly isn't the first to try and play with me, though he _is_ the first to get this far." A hint of a proud smile. "I must have done something _really_ bad."

The nerves of Izaya always got to Shizuo. _How could he be so fuckin' cocky?_

"We're probably gonna end up being shot by a firing squad, or something. How long's it gonna take you to realize that, huh?"

A short laugh. Even through the painkillers, breathing with his ripped-up chest was difficult. "That's much too simple, Shizu-chan. The same way I want to grant him a fate worse than death, he wants to do the same to us." … _since when did Shizu-chan and I become an 'us?' Disgusting._ "Though he definitely doesn't plan on letting us leave here alive."

Shizuo looked towards the door. "So, what the hell now?"

"The more we tarry, the more they'd want to force us to go up those stairs." He offered the bowl to Shizuo. "So suppress your monstrous instincts for once and let us be on our way."

Shizuo accepted the bowl and drank the rest of the water out of it, and set it down on the table.

"I'm carrying you," he replied, grabbing the coat-bag.

Izaya huffed. "I know this is testing the limits of your goldfish-memory, but we discussed this before. You are _not_ carrying me."

"I don't care. You think you can hop on the staircase? Eh?" His tone grew irritated.

The informant motioned to stand up, only to be stopped by Shizuo lifting him up by the waist and putting him over his right shoulder, on his stomach.

It took a couple of seconds for Izaya to register what had happened, but as soon as he did, he didn't thrash with his legs - or rather, _leg_ , he thought bitterly. _No need to draw attention to my new weapon either._ And so, he dug his nails as hard as he could into Shizuo's back through the once-white shirt.

"Cut that out, flea." Shizuo growled, as he made his way over to the staircase.

"No," he hissed and shifted his hands, knotting them into Shizuo's hair and tugging. "Let go. I'm _not_ someone you need to babysit."

"Seems like you're having lots of fun." Shizuo scowled.

" _I'm_ the one who is having fun? You always told me to kiss your ass but I never thought you meant it literally."

The scowl deepened.

"Do that and you'll go home-run, louse."

"Eh~?" It was as if Izaya could see the tables turn in his favor. He retracted his fingers, trying to shove Shizuo's head away as he did so, and let gravity drop his arms down. "Don't tell me Shizu-chan is uncomfortable now?"

Shizuo looked up at the staircase as he set his foot on the first stair. "Sure. Aren't you? Or are you comfy, flea?"

"I will be soon~" _Oh, the double entendres. Perhaps triple, with the revolver._

With that, Izaya pinched Shizuo's gluteus maximus.

Shizuo stopped midway through his steps, and took a deep breath, making sure nothing was heard except for the silence.

" _Don't do that again,_ " he threatened.

"Don't make that sound so temptingly gross~" Izaya wiped his hand on Shizuo's shirt as if he were getting rid of invisible dirt, as if _monster_ was contagious. _So he didn't put me down ..._ He supported his cheek with his palm, elbow pressed to Shizuo's back as he tilted his head to grin at the other. "I don't plan to take my little joke any further than _that_ when you're already halfway through making me a cripple."

"And don't make me fucking _finish_ it." With all said and done, Shizuo finally decided to begin escalating the staircase.

"Oh, wouldn't you be _happy_ to do so."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Here's an extra long chapter in the spirit of Valentine's Day~ Hope you enjoyed the read.


	8. Smoke And Mirrors, Stairway To Heaven

**Other Author's Note: Wowee. Hope y'all like this one.**

* * *

 **Smoke And Mirrors, Stairway To Heaven.**

Cue Izaya's philosophy that the debt collector would tune out.

Then again, since there was nothing Shizuo could do besides walk up the stairs, he had figured to pass the time by listening. Not with much interest, mind you, but enough to not automatically tune it out. It at least served as a distraction from his craving for the damned source of nicotine, though the edge had been taken off of his headache.

Izaya didn't know _when_ he started talking, only that his throat felt dry and that he was starting to vibrate - either from unseen cold or drug-induced excitement; it was a rather forceful attempt at normalcy, one that he had gotten chest-deep into. "- If infinity would encompass everything, what would its antonym be? Nothing – in other words, zero. However, it isn't quite as simple as that. All you need is a little change of perspective. One could consider infinity as the largest possible quantity, and as such consider its opposite the smallest possible one." A pause for dramatic effect. "Epsilon."

"Considering how neither infinity nor epsilon exist as a tangible value, you'd think about how it could be useful to us, but science and mathematics rely on them more than you'd know. The same thing goes for imaginary numbers." As he spoke, he idly drew lazy circles into Shizuo's back, dried blood flecking off with the barely perceptible movements.

"It is making something out of nothing but the limits of human imagination – in the most _fascinating_ way possible."

Shizuo replied, quite bored. "So the point of all that rambling is…?"

Izaya's movements paused momentarily as he registered Shizuo's input, though he was quick to dismiss it and move on - the discussion was already fairly one-sided. "Aristotle - a Greek philosopher - discovered a prospect called the golden mean. Most books, movies, anything with a story really comes back to the black-and-white good versus bad, right versus wrong ... heaven, hell, and all that." He rotated his wrist. "However, what most people would assume nowadays that it's just a spectrum of gray between the two.

"Aristotle didn't think that. To him, good and bad weren't opposites at all - rather, good is the _mean_ between the excess of bad and deficiency of bad." He quieted for a moment, both to catch his breath and allow his words to sink in before he would continue to his next point. "How about something else then, as an example-"

Shizuo ignored Izaya's suggestion to talk about something else. "So I'm the evil; you're the good? At least, in your deluded view."

"Hmm?" Surprisingly enough, Izaya didn't feel a spark of irritation at being interrupted. Rather, he turned to look at Shizuo, expression lit up in pure investment. "It's not that at all-"

"Then what's that shit about you being a hero and me being a monster?"

"Being the mean between good and bad isn't the same as being the mean between the excess of monster - that being you - and the deficiency of it - that being humans." His tone wasn't caustic, merely speculative. He settled back into his previous position and continued the ministrations. "I am above both humans and monsters. Perhaps not the _mean_ in itself, but even you can understand what I'm getting at."

"Yeah, I get it. The same type of philosophical shit I've been hearing from the moment I've met you. You're not above humans or monsters; you're a manipulator who tricks people into hurting themselves, or others, just to satisfy your sick fucking craving."

The circles turned into figure-eights, and his gaze dropped to the clean white floors - there really wasn't much to look at other than that, Shizuo, and himself. "Manipulative? That's a harsh way to look at it. I merely give humanity a guiding hand and push them in the direction that allows me to see _more_. For them to see more."

Shizuo stayed silent for a few seconds. "Tch. I knew you lie to others and yourself, but it's like every word that comes out of your mouth is just a twisted lie to justify whatever the hell you do."

He hummed in thought, calming down into the routine of provoking the monster. "I'm sure Shizu-chan likes to think he knows so much about me, but that is a lie _you_ feed yourself."

Shizuo sighed, and shaked his head disappointingly. "I don't know anything about you, and I'd be surprised if anyone did."

At that, Shinra's face rose up from the back of Izaya's mind unbidden. _Hmph._ "Well~ Shizu-chan, have you ever thought about love?"

 _I don't like where this is going._ He responded with a hesitant, "Yeah."

His palm flattened over Shizuo's back. The questions were spoken in an excited breath, each word blurring together as if he were asking _himself_ these questions just as they left his mouth. "What are your thoughts on it? Do you believe in it? If you do, what about romantic love? There's als-"

"Shut the fuck up for a second." He sighed. "Why do you care, why do you care, and _why_ do you care?" Which was his own way of answering the three questions Izaya posed him.

"Interesting to look at things from a monster's perspective, especially on a prospect that I observed has ruined so many. Come oooo~n, Shi~zu~chan," he sing-songed. "Indulge me."

Irritation tempted him to smack his elbow right into Izaya's face. "Fuck no, I'm not _indulging_ you, louse. That's none of your business."

"You're no fun~ Don't tell me you're shy?"

"Quit trying to fucking provoke me into telling you, asshole."

Izaya considered this. It wasn't that he cared much about the brute's opinion; rather, he wasn't inclined to back down as it meant taking the loss. "How about a way of showing your _utmost_ regret, hmm?" he purred, with the undercurrent of warning.

"My utmost…" His face dipped down onto the stairs. "... shut up. Stop reminding me."

As the tide of the conversation shifted, Izaya found bits of the unfamiliar fury come back and swallowed them down. "I don't need to remind you." He shifted his leg-and-a-half a bit, closer to Shizuo's line of vision. "Looking at me is enough to do that, ne?"

"Stop it. Just stop." The anger, too, was rising in Shizuo. He felt uncomfortable and guilty, but that certain part of his mind _knew_ Izaya would push it just to get some _kicks_ out of it. _Real fucking funny, me._

"All you have to do is answer my questions~ I'm _trying_ to be nice to you, but you really are forcing my hand." He glanced back at the other, eyes glinting and smirk sharpening. "Or would you prefer me getting angry? How many people do you know had seen me like that and lived to tell the tale~?"

"Fuck you. I'm not playing into your fucking hands, flea."

"Hmm… Would you prefer me talking about how much of a monster you are~? You know how _happy_ that makes you."

"I think I got the memo on what your opinion on me is. No need to repeat yourself _twice_."

"How about goading you into hurting me? I'm within easy reach. All you have to do is squeeze lightly~"

Shizuo growled, "You want that. You want me to kill you so that I'd really become a monster. Even if that means you dying."

"Tempting, ne? That, ooooor~ Shizu-chan can answer the questions. What do you say?"

"Or," he proposed a third option, "I can shut your fucking mouth."

Izaya paused, biting his lip as he mulled the effect of his next statements over. "Ah~ So that's what Shizu-chan thinks about romance."

"What-" He exhaled loudly. "No- what the fuck's wrong with you?!"

 _There's the button. Now to push~_ "You want the worst thing to happen to me, ne? I don't think many people come back from rape."

Shizuo's eyes momentarily widened in surprise, and he was taken aback. "... Christ, flea, I don't… I wouldn't…"

"Hmm…" Izaya's torso shifted as he tried to find a more comfortable position, and he nudged the other's arm. "It does feel good being trapped like this."

Shizuo simply _shuddered_ in response _._

And so, Izaya repeated. "Do you believe in love?"

He sighed. "Fine, I'll answer your fucking question flea. Yes."

"Why?"

He wasn't sure how to respond to that. "I don't know. I just do." In fact, he never really thought about that.

Minutely, Izaya's fingers curled, and he idly continued the slow, precise motions on Shizuo's back. "Romantic love is merely a term used to delude oneself into thinking infatuation meant something more than the instinct to reproduce."

Shizuo didn't really care. "Yeah, okay."

"Though love does exist."

"Whatever _your_ version of that is, it's called a trip to the fucking psychologist."

"Does Shizu-chan love someone to be so educated on this topic~?"

There was _one_ person. But he knew how that turned out. "No. And I don't want anyone to." Wallowing in self-pity was not one of the things Shizuo enjoyed to do.

A thought occurred to Izaya, and he shook in barely contained laughter.

Shizuo felt the irritation spike threefold. "What's so fucking funny, flea?!"

"Is Shizu-chan sexually frustrated? Is he bitter because he doesn't get any action~?"

He blinked in response. "What…?" Never in his life had he felt any 'sexual frustration,' nor has his mind really gone over to the thought of sex in general.

 _He's so confused~ How amusing._ "So the rumors are true. Shizu-chan really _is_ a virgin."

Involuntarily, Shizuo's cheeks tinted a light pink. "Shut up. Why do you care?"

"I have to watch what I say around the innocent beastling, ne?"

"Nnng," he growled, tightening his hold on Izaya.

In the light of this new discovery, Izaya imitated Shizuo's growl, with _just_ the right amount ardor. " _Ah~ Shizu-chan~_ " he moaned, pitching his voice higher. "You know I like it when you hurt me like that~"

He responded by softening the grip as fast as light speed. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you."

Izaya chuckled into his ear. "You make it so fun to tease you."

"Makes me think that you might _not_ be fucking with me sometimes."

"So gross~ Shizu-chan should watch his phrasing or someone will get the wrong idea."

"That someone being you."

"You know we're being watched, ne? Filmed for all we know."

 _Filmed…_ "Okay, fine, just shut the fuck up and let's stop talking about this."

"You know me better than to be quiet~" Izaya finally settled for cradling his jaw in both hands. As time passed, he was growing increasingly stiff and uncomfortable with the warmth. "All jokes aside, I would be _very_ entertained to watch Shizu-chan try to have a normal relationship with someone, that is, if she manages to decipher anything from your primal grunting. I imagine you like the big-sister type, ne~?"

Izaya felt crushing force around his stomach after that last comment. "You gonna keep that up, EH?!"

" _Ack_ -" His torso was battered enough; painkillers weren't going to help with this. "Shizu-chan, you aren't supposed to be mean to the injured. Wh-" A slight hitch in his voice as the pressure increased. "- _ere_ are your manners?"

"Even when I'm carrying your ass you're pathetic enough to try and piss me off." The tightening around Izaya's chest relaxed into its previous state. "Tch."

Izaya exhaled softly as the pain filtered back into the cloud of drugs. "I thought Shizu-chan would appreciate my efforts to deviate back into familiarity."

Shizuo huffed. "Such a fuckin' louse to deal with." He said, aiming it towards no one in particular.

Izaya glanced down at his fingers, which had sporadically been drawing into Shizuo's back, his rings glinting dimly and pockmarks of pink wax spotting the ends. _Shizu-chan hasn't mentioned it yet._ He felt himself begin to smile.

 _Let's test this theory of mine…_

"Would you have preferred if I continued doing this?" He was stepping into uncharted waters when his fingers slipped back down to the fabric of Shizuo's shirt, lightly kneading.

Shizuo lightly bumped his shoulder to the side of Izaya's torso. " _No._ "

"You didn't complain about it before though. Too taken by me to notice~?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say, flea." Shizuo replied, putting on the most neutral tone he could.

Izaya definitely wasn't satisfied with that flippant response, so he continued with what might have been an impromptu massage but was merely a way to get the other's attention. Around a quarter hour had passed since they started up the stairs. _It shouldn't be long now_.

"This place feels like it's one, maybe two miles deep." Shizuo pondered for a moment. "Think they're just venting the place with oxygen?"

"Shizu-chan's senses are as accurate as a dog's."

Shizuo closed his eyes in annoyance and exhaled loudly through his nose. "And that means…?"

A flash of teeth from the raven-haired man, yet he kept his silence and resumed the ministrations.

A wave of annoyance washed over Shizuo, yet he restrained himself from doing anything.

"Dogs have good senses, so I guess that's your shitty way of saying yes."

"By Jove, you have learned to speak 'flea!'" Izaya's tone couldn't get any drier than a desert during the summer solstice. "What other tricks can you do? Roll over and play dead, perhaps?"

"I'll make you roll over and you _will_ be dead. Tch," Shizuo growled.

"So scary~ Perhaps Shizu-chan is more suited to fetching or begging for a treat. The chocolate should still be with the other things you so conveniently left in the room where I torched you. Maybe you're finally getting close to being house-trained." At his own mention of food, Izaya felt his own stomach spasm silently - in a contradictory mixture of nausea and hunger. How long had it been since he last ate?

"And if I hit you over the head with this bag you're gonna get knocked out. So shut up." Shizuo stated bluntly. His eyes fixated towards the top of the stairs. _We're getting close. I can feel the draft._

A curl of anger that this time around, he didn't bother trying to suppress. "'Knocked out?'" Izaya echoed, tone light and airy even as his smile darkened. "We can see how _well_ it went last time when you made me fall into unconsciousness, ne?"

Shizuo grit his teeth as it felt like something went haywire in the back of his mind. _Shut up._

Even if he didn't want to, Shizuo involuntarily tightened his grip on the coat and Izaya. It was a subtle, but noticeable difference.

 _Getting worked up now, I see._

 _Well, I have only just begun paying you back for what you've done with my comments. Let's consider this part one~_

"Oh, right. I ended up losing the lower half of my leg and therefore almost all means of mobility." Despite how he grappled to keep his voice controlled, there was the menacing undercurrent of anger. "Not just _that_ either. Shizu-chan really is the worst."

"Shut _up._ " Shizuo had tried to keep himself quiet, and when he let those words, they were let out in a ragged breath. "Shut the fuck up. How _hard_ is it for you to get that?"

"Clearly as hard as it was for you to amputate a limb of your most hated enemy." His smile was laced with dynamite.

"What the _fuck_ do you want from me?" Shizuo angrily replied, his voice lowered this time around - strained, even.

"Simple. I want you to atone." His knuckles were white now, curled into fists with nails digging into his skin. "Just because you're the monstrous Shizu-chan doesn't mean I'm going to let something like this slip by so easily. You should have kept to your nature and killed me when you had the chance." _Not_ ruined _me so that you wouldn't have blood on your hands._

" _No._ I'm not… I'm not gonna _kill_ another human being just so you can justify calling me a fucking monster."

"So you consider me a human being? What an interesting development, though it seems I need to remind you of our relationship." He was definitely angry now - not burning with it, but rather frigid with it. "If you think there is _ever_ an option beyond us hating each other, then you are deluding yourself. I _hate_ you. I hate you so much that I wish you would choke on it and _die_."

"You pulled me out of the road so that you could kill me later. But if we're gonna die anyways-" He stopped in his tracks, and with venomous anger, spoke, then asked the same question he did before.

"Why didn't you _leave_ me?"

Abruptly, Izaya slammed his knee into Shizuo's side before pounding his fists on the other's back. He ignored the pain that shot up from the points of impact, how he probably hurt himself more than he hurt the beast, how the weight of the gun momentarily made stars burst in his vision as he clamped down on the _urge_ , but the nature of the action should be enough. "Let. Me. _Go_ ," he spat. "I can't stand one more _second_ around you, _**monster**_."

Shizuo flinched in surprise, and his eyes widened only momentarily.

 _Fuck you, Izaya. You deserve this shit, fleabag._

"You know _what_?" He rhetorically asked, voice reaching a crescendo of anger.

 _I hate you as well. I hated you from the moment I've met you, flea._

" _One warning."_ He stopped and set the coat bag down. Izaya felt a rough hand grab his good leg.

Shizuo felt a tinge of regret in the back of his mind, but he pushed it away.

" _Don't fall off the knife's edge, flea. Or you might just get hurt badly."_

Shizuo yanked.

There was _just_ enough force for it to feel as though his leg was going to rip off right out of its socket, and Izaya's mind blanked to the terror he felt when he realized his leg was gone.

That it could happen again to his other one.

That if it did, he really would be done.

And that all this time, he really had been at Shizuo's mercy.

His chest shuddered once.

Shizuo scowled. _Maybe I should've pulled_ _ **harder.**_

It wasn't a laugh that made Izaya quake once more, nor was it a sob. His teeth ground against each other audibly, hands knotting the fabric of Shizuo's blood-stained shirt with enough tension for it to tear.

" _I_ _hate you._ " The words shook, simmering with heat.

Heat was an understatement.

Izaya was _burning_ with a fire so far from the one he dreamed of that robbed him of the life he had come to know. _This_ fire was stoked by a decade worth of vehement hatred, resentment, fury, and it didn't destroy him. Not at all. Rather, it gave him a twisted joy,

" _I detest you."_

that no matter what situation he would be thrust in,

" _I loathe you."_

he would always,

" _I abhor you, I -"_

 _always,_

" _\- Hate you."_

A ragged breath. " _There are not enough words in the dictionary or air in the world for me to express how much I want to_ end _you_."

He fell silent after that, going as carefully still and calm as the eye of a hurricane.

Shizuo released his leg and picked up the bag.

"Then you missed your chance."

The rest of their journey up the staircase was filled with a silence only broken by the sounds of Shizuo's footsteps. Finally, the darker square of the room beyond appeared, growing larger as the distance was closed.

Shizuo grunted. "Finally." He gave a quick consideration about what Izaya's thought process was, but dismissed it, thinking it didn't matter what the hell kind of things the flea was conjuring in his head.

When they broke onto the landing, the room hadn't changed much - only made more grotesque in the harsh lighting. The tattered red blanket was still piled in a heap, the single pink crane Izaya had so carefully folded rumpled and discarded off the side. Hardened wax and dried blood clung to the decayed floorboards, and broken pieces of chain were haphazardly strewn across the room. Water continued to _drip-drop_ in the corner, forming a dark words were still written along the walls, and Izaya's head lifted once to read them -

 _Heiwajima-san. I hope you enjoyed your little trip. What were the hallucinations like, I wonder? Orihara-san certainly would have made the experience_ bearable _for you._

 _I wonder if you finally tasted the fear of killing someone._

 _Feeling their life bleed out from under your hands, their fragile body going limp underneath you._

 _You spoke of Orihara-san dying cold and alone had you perished before._

 _It seems that had backfired on you._

\- before dropping back down.

The room certainly hadn't changed much since their departure, all except for a section of wall neatly broken away with warm sunlight streaming in, haloing part of the floorboard in gold.

Shizuo examined the room to see if there was anything useful he could take, and figured that he'd take the remaining candles, paper as kindling, and … the heart-shaped boxes of chocolate truffles. He could also empty the wine bottles to fill them up with water.

One problem - he had to let go of Izaya for that to happen.

Shizuo sighed. He didn't like that at all - because god only knows who Izaya was in this state.

He walked over to a nearby wall, "I'm gonna put you down, so try not to kill me so soon after we got out." He gave it a few seconds for Izaya to respond.

Nope. Nothing. Nada. _Zilch._

"..." Shizuo wanted to shrug, but he also didn't want to bust one of (if not several of) Izaya's ribs in doing so, rather, he set the bag down and leaned his left arm over Izaya's waist, shifting his right arm to the other side.

Afterwards, he tried his best to gently lift Izaya off his shoulder and set him down against the wall, leg and a half pointing straight forwards.

Once his weight had settled, Izaya slid down his back until he reached the floor. His expression was blank, completely wiped of any trace of arrogance or provocation or emotion at all.

Somehow, it was far more unnerving than any sort of face Izaya could pull.

Shizuo gave Izaya a strange look as he was standing up, but moved on otherwise.

 _That's what you fucking get._

He took this moment of freedom from carrying the louse to stretch his arms and back, afterwards beginning the process of emptying the wine off the side and bracing them against the wall to collect water. With that done, he started unknotting Izaya's coat and grabbing the various items to put into storage.

 _Damn, this ugly-ass coat can hold as much as an actual fuckin' backpack._

Izaya began to fiddle with the fabric of his knee, watching in his peripherals if Shizuo gave any indication of noticing. _Of course not; the brute notices_ nothing _._ Silently, he began to undo the bundle, rolling out the white fabric like a carpet. He pulled out the revolver, clicking out the cylinder and thumbing in bullets.

He left a chamber empty.

Tucking the final bullet into his cheek so that he wouldn't lose it, he took his time knotting the fabric up once more.

Izaya lifted the gun one-handed, staring down the barrel at where Shizuo's spine met his neck. Blonde strands of hair curled over skin lighter than it should have been, a place where the sun couldn't darken it to a tan.

It would be _so easy_.

Shizuo had packed everything at this point, and decided to take a break by standing in front of the opening, staring out into particularly nowhere. It was peaceful, if only for a brief moment. He felt like he could go out and bask in the sun for hours; just to avoid the fate of wherever they were.

The barrel of the gun tracked his movements, shifting from Shizuo's heart, to the nape of his neck, to the back of his head. Anywhere else and the brute could shrug it off like a metaphorical excavator.

 _No,_ Izaya mused. _I want to see his expression when I do it._

His breathing was calm, vision focused.

A tilt of his head, a smile splitting his features. He adopted the same inquisitive tone he had when a similar question had been asked, yet there was no mistaking the malice in his expression.

He cocked the pistol.

"Shizu-chan, do you believe in happy endings?"

Shizuo raised an eyebrow at that. _Breaking my peace and quiet, huh…_ He sighed. "Why do you care?"

"Turn around."

A quiet Izaya wasn't an upset Izaya. No... A quiet Izaya was a plotting Izaya.

 _Where'd he fuckin' get that from? Whatever._

"Could just… whatever." He relished in the last few moments of basking in the sunlight, before turning around 180 degrees to face Izaya.

 _What the fuck-_

Izaya pulled the trigger.


	9. Aim For The Moon, Land Amidst The Stars

**Aim For The Moon, Land Amidst The Stars**

 _BANG!_

The bullet whistled past Shizuo's head, clipping his ear and ricocheting off the far wall. Blood began to spill down the side of his neck, wetting his hair.

 _One_ , Izaya counted mentally, working the bullet around in his mouth, and clicked his tongue in annoyance. He'd meant to graze the other's temple, but his grip faltered at the very last moment when dizziness swarmed his vision.

Shizuo stood in momentary silence, hands curled into fists, surprise coloring his features, before his face contorted into rage. "FLEA, _I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU!_ "

"You wouldn't. Not when you still can't." The reply was calm, the gun in his hand steady and still as his finger flirted with the trigger.

"FUCKING _TRY_ ME-"

"Ah-ah-ah," he disagreed as his head listed to the side, grin bordering coquettish.

Shizuo's vision thumped with rage, and his fingernails dug into the skin of his palms, as his body started moving instinctively. "IIIZAAAAYAAAAAAAA!"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you~" Izaya shot Shizuo's left kneecap, the bullet ripping through both flesh and bone. _Two._ When his leg was pierced, Shizuo's instinct was to lunge with his other leg at him, like a tiger would to its prey. Like a beast.

 _That's it, Shizu-chan~_ Izaya rolled to the side on his shoulder, and as he came up in a crouch, the next bullet was fired into Shizuo's other leg, and more flesh and blood was spilt, despite the shot being off. _Three_. Blood was seeping through the white fabric of Izaya's shirt, though he was too high on the adrenaline rush to care.

Shizuo continued his movements by propelling himself via his arms, and he was at a close enough distance to swing a fist towards the revolver, with enough force to tear Izaya's arm free from his torso, or at least, shatter it, if he wasn't careful.

Izaya dropped the gun in the other hand waiting right beneath him, his empty fingers just narrowly missed by the fist blurring past his vision. Displaced air brushed his tangled hair back, and Shizuo was close enough for Izaya to press the muzzle to the other's forehead.

This time, all that came from the gun was a hollow _click_ , coinciding with Izaya's narration.

"Bang."

Shizuo stilled his movements, muscles tightening in shock.

"Fuck…" He took in a deep breath. "You."

"Hmm…" Using the gun, Izaya lifted the bleached strands of hair falling into Shizuo's eyes, dedicating the other's expression to memory. "Well, Shizu-chan made me a little angry before. You can't fault me for wanting to get back at you for that, ne?" Izaya's voice was a low, dangerous purr, eyes narrowed.

A rough swipe contacted Izaya's side, and he was thrown against the wall. " _Don't_ fuck with me," Shizuo growled, as he stood up and wiped wet, crimson red liquid off his hair.

A muffled grunt, followed by a short laugh as Izaya spat the bullet in his mouth into his palm, minutely inspecting it from in between his thumb and forefinger before placing it on the ground. There was one still left in the chamber. Holding the revolver up to the light scintillating off its surface, he flicked the cylinder, the metal rotating in a blur. "Did I take my joke too far~?" Once again, he cocked the revolver, though this time, his grip wavered ever so slightly due to the pain pulsating up his side, pain that he swallowed down with ease.

"Same trick won't work _twice_. Want me to turn your hand into dust?

\- I won't fucking hesitate."

"Problem is, Shizu-chan, this is a gamble, not a trick." He peered down the barrel at the other, amusement glinting in his eyes. "You've heard of Russian Roulette?"

"Uh-huh. Sure have. One bullet, six chambers."

"Five in this case~ A more or less twenty percent chance of a bullet going through your skull. The odds are in your favour." The odds really _were_ in his favour; due to the weight of the bullet, the loaded chamber usually ended up near the bottom.

"So hurry up and pull the fuckin' trigger because just _looking_ at you makes me angry."

"Eager now, are we?" He spun the gun around his finger idly. "I want you to suffer just a little bit, so indulge me."

Shizuo rested a hand against the wall and dug his fingertips into the material, before leaning off and turning away from Izaya and towards the exit. "Enjoy yourself while I'm gone," he responded, repressing the anger in his voice as he lifted himself off, painstakingly hopping away. _Head hurts again._

Izaya shot, and much to his disappointment, the chamber was empty. "Ah~ More's the pity."

"Now try shooting yourself before I go out." The driest of smirks accompanied Shizuo's features.

Without hesitation, Izaya turned the gun towards himself, tucking the muzzle against the soft space between his neck and chin. It was unnervingly cool against his hot skin, and his finger relaxed on the trigger frame.

"..." Shizuo scowled in wait as he crossed his arms and and leaned against the frame of the shack. "Any day now." The blond felt a twitch of guilt as he said those words, but he quickly dismissed it.

For one, insane second, Izaya almost wanted to shoot true. Not because he desired death - not at all. It was more that he knew that if he died right now, the brute would break, be it from guilt or regret or loneliness or the blood that he would convince himself he had on his hands. It was an interesting prospect, one that he silently entertained.

However, Izaya found himself lifting the gun away from his pulse.

 _Of course._ Shizuo thought as the other's arm dropped.

Izaya cocked an eyebrow at the brute's expression, as if he expected this. With one flick of his hand, the raven pulled the trigger, aiming for Shizuo's ear. His fingers momentarily loosened in shock at the deafeningly loud bang, shortly followed by blood trailing down the other side of the blond's head. It was vaguely amusing how it completed the symmetry.

Shizuo's teeth grit in anger as he started hopping back to Izaya. " _Give_ me the _gun_."

With renewed interest, Izaya admired the revolver, turning it over in his palm. "That could have gone through my head, and _that's_ what you're concerned about~?"

 _He's such a coward that he can laugh about it._

Shizuo repeated once more, harsher this time. "You better give me the damn gun."

"No," he deadpanned, before lifting the final bullet up as a promise. "This one has your name on it. How can I dare to impart from your harbinger of death?"

"I'll shove that bullet down your fucking throat."  
"Oooh~ Kinky."

Shizuo narrowed his eyes in irritation. "What the fuck is wrong with you, flea?"

"My hatred for you is getting to much to bear," he stated flatly, dropping his arm. "And I'm starting to grow impatient."

He blinked, and a beat passed. "I'm gonna go out." _Something's fuckin' wrong with you, alright._

Involuntarily, the raven touched a hand to his chest, sensing dampness, and his gaze skated over the brute's injuries. "Break a leg, Shizu-chan."

Shizuo rolled his eyes and huffed a chuckle. "I'll break one just for you, and carve 'Flea' into it too."

"Aww, I'm so touched~" Izaya pulled his fingers away - red. No wonder why his breaths grew increasingly labored. "Give _me_ the bonesaw and I just might shed a few tears in gratitude."

"Yeah, it'd be a fuckin' _pleasure_. Now what the hell do you want when I come back?"

"Can you fashion me a crutch?" His eyes shifted to the glimpse of trees and promise of warmth outside, as different from this moldy, blood-streaked room as he was from Shizuo.

Like a juxtaposition, perhaps.

"You want me to tear off a piece of a tree and have you use that as a walking stick?"

"You can use _that_ for yourself, but I suppose my case is different." _Unless you expect me to hop around in brush waving it at you threateningly._ "Though, if you can find two forked branches, that would be enough." He demonstrated by making the letter V with his fingers.

"Those'd be some pretty fuckin' long branches."

A sly smile. "I don't doubt Shizu-chan would be able to disappoint. The only thing you have going for you is your ability to rip stop-signs out of the ground like you're plucking flowers in a meadow."

Shizuo pondered on that for moment, him in an open field, picking up blossoms from the grass.

 _Tch._

"Whatever. Don't practice your aiming on me while I'm out, flea."

Izaya bit back a laugh as he took more notice of the other's awkward method of walking, though he couldn't suppress the distinct twitch of his lips. "I wouldn't dream of it~ Now run along, errand boy." He made a shooing gesture with his hands. "I'll be here."

"Try not to die from boredom; fleas like you live off of being shitty." Shizuo turned around and started hopping.

"It seems I have no choice but to manage without your _charming_ company. Don't take too long, now~" Not much time had passed since he finished his sentence before a short " _Pft_ " sounded from the informant, and he hid his laugh behind a hand. _Jumping like a little rabbit through the meadows picking up flowers, ne, Shizu-chan? All you're missing are the bunny ears._

Shizuo gave Izaya a gift on the way out - the middle finger.

Izaya responded with a cheeky peace sign.

* * *

The further Shizuo grew from the small building, the more it faded away under the cover of trees - redwood and maple, poplar and pine, birch and spruce. The land was at a small incline, stray rocks and fallen leaves skittering away as he descended. Pine needles brushed against his side as the brush grew denser, the hum of wildlife growing more prominent. To his right, a creek trickled downwards, weaving and winding.

He was going much farther than he meant to, but he still didn't find what Izaya had asked for.

 _Where the fuck did they take us…?_

The more he walked - hobbled - the more he felt the leftover curls of anger dissipate from his chest. Warm sunlight filtered in from the canopy, and cool, fresh breezes rose up to meet him.

Eventually, he came to a stop in front of a tree with low-hanging branches, sturdy and diverting into two. Just what they needed.

 _And what the fuck have we been doing this whole time? How much time has passed?_

He turned around and glanced back the way he came.

 _I crippled the flea for life._

 _But Izaya doesn't change for shit, does he?_ For a moment, he could hear the inane laughter of the informant from when he had woken up, the disbelief in his eyes and undercurrent of fury in his voice. For Izaya to lose his cool like that…

 _Maybe I'm wrong on that one._

He thought of the gun then, tucked underneath Izaya's jaw, along the ring of bruises from Shizuo's hands, the flea looking at him daringly as if it were natural.

 _We've always hated each other._

He thought of the times he _almost_ killed Izaya, how Izaya _almost_ killed him.

 _Neither one of us is gonna let go that easily._

Insults thrown back and forth, a tug-of-war game that goes on in every sentence spoken between the two.

 _I wish I had it in me to kill you, to get rid of you, to erase you from my mind, to -_

 _I hate you, but I'm too much of a coward to kill you._

His hands curled up into fists.

 _I despise you, Orihara_ _ **Izaya**_ _._

A skittering sound of claws on wood jarred him from his thoughts, and he punched the tree in reflex just to shut it _up_.

There was a groan of wood splintering as the pine was fell, and when the dust had settled, a squirrel scurried out from its hiding place to give Shizuo the stink-eye.

He responded by staring back at the squirrel with an annoyed frown, before sighing as he took his hand off the tree, brushing off any splinters sticking to his knuckles. "Great time to come out, buddy," he murmured as he hopped over to the branches, grabbing two of them and holding them in one hand; wobbling was faster. He idly felt around his hair as his hand brushed against dried blood, and the itchiness was practically unbearable. _Being shot in the head would be nicer than this._

As if karma responded, once Shizuo began hopping again, he felt a wave of dizziness as his concentration slipped, and he tumbled down onto the ground.

"... need some fuckin' cigs," he muttered, as his fingers dug into the earth below to control his temper.

* * *

Meanwhile, Izaya waited for the bleeding to stem and crawled over to his precious coat, quickly unknotting it and setting the supplies aside in a neat pile.

It was more brown than black now, with what the dirt and the sear marks. The fur-lining was rough and matted. He shrugged it on, thumbed the final bullet into the chamber, and tucked the revolver into his pocket, before he ultimately wrapped himself in its warmth in what might have been a feeble attempt at familiarity.

His nose twitched. _Blech. It smells like Shizu-chan, the brute._

Nonetheless, he kept it on, pulling the hood over his hair.

 _Cologne, smoke, sweat, and blood -_ my _blood._

He shifted the hood to cover his face, breathing.

 _Hmph._ "Even when he's not here, Shizu-chan is as annoying as always," he bemoaned, pulling himself up into a seated position.

His hand moved to touch where the rest of his leg should have been, curling into a loose fist. His eyebrows lowered, mouth curving downward.

 _What was that? Losing your composure?_ A quiet chuckle, one that fell short even to his own ears. _I'm more upset about this than I thought, geez. It shouldn't matter._

 _Well_ \- He turned his attention to the boxes of chocolate. His stomach was definitely growling by now, his body's needs overtaking the trauma it had endured, as well as Izaya's dislike for sweets. _It's all Shizu-chan's fault anyway, him and his unamusing attempt at playing hero._

He tugged the pale pink ribbon off and lifted the lid as if he was pulling the pin off a grenade. _That, or he actually gained a few brain cells and figured out his own method at revenge without shredding that oh-so-cute conscience of his._ Instantly, the scent of chocolate curled up, sickeningly saccharine.

 _He is going to pay... the pain can't get any worse than this. That is, unless it gets infected, though I doubt our kidnappers want me to die just yet._ Small spheres decorated with swirls of milk chocolate, sprinkles, cocoa powder, or nuts sat in neat rows, and Izaya picked one up, inspecting it. _Wouldn't Shizu-chan get a kick out of that._ A flash of teeth. _His life would be so much easier without me in his hair._

"Orihara Izaya," he declared, "The informant of Shinjuku-"

He popped it into his mouth. It was definitely chewy and cloying, yet he ate a couple more… "Lover of humanity."

And more. "Dangerous."

...and more. "Rival to the Fortissimo of Ikebukuro."

Soon enough, the box had been emptied. Izaya felt the bite of hunger ebb away with revulsion to replace it. An eye roll. "-is now eating chocolate." By now, the wine bottles had partially filled, and there was no indication that the water would stop dripping anytime soon. "Ahaha, isn't that funny~?"

A little more maneuvering, and he ended up right next to it, drinking his fill to wash down the taste. He pulled off his hood and lied down, running water through his hair with what remained. Grit and specs of blood came away at his fingers, and the strands began to soften to their original texture. His hands caught on his hair in another attempt at laughter. "It's even funnier that I can't walk anymore. I give you points, though it's going to take more than that to truly knock me off my feet, so to speak." His lips twitched at his own joke, as if he were genuinely unruffled by the situation. "But really? Bringing the protozoan here?"

He restored the bottle to its original position and moved to where what remained of the red blanket was. "That's just hilarious. With those gifts you had at the start, it really makes me curious about what you expect~"

Facing away from the opening, he bundled it up to use it as a pillow and rested his damp head against it, reposing on his right side. He peered up at the camera, its beady eye bearing down on him. "Geez. Whatever it is, I would like it if you left Shizu-chan to me. It would be a shame if you kill him before I get the chance to ruin the monster."

He fell quiet after that, entertaining the thought of how he was to go about this, and folded several paper cranes, placing them next to him.

It was when he got to number 9 did he stop, a smirk lifting his features, with _just_ the touch of menace.

 _Felt guilty about nearly killing me? Not going to let me die? I'm going to give you a whole repertoire of reasons why you really should have killed me when you had the chance._

It was only when he heard footsteps creak against wood did Izaya start, jolted from his thoughts. "Oh so you're finally-"

Hiss body moved just as he thought, _the protozoan doesn't walk like that_.

A flash of steel, Izaya's hands shooting out to grab the wrist holding a knife to keep it from splitting his skull. "You're not Shizu-chan."

His assailant - a large man dressed in crisp white clothes coated liberally in blood – straddled Izaya's waist as he pressed the knife down, against Izaya's resistance. A tattered white mask clung to the male's fair, foreign features, exposing a flash of teeth and squint of his left eye. The iris was a pale, unseeing blue with a milky film, the skin around it festering with burns and blisters.

There was also this _tiny_ little detail - If the man had two arms rather than one, he would have been doing a much better job at trying to bury the glinting edge in between Izaya's eyes.

His nose crinkled against the repulsive odor, yet he kept his (albeit tense) grin and shoved the hand to the side, the knife's point forced down and splintering the wooden floorboards.

Izaya bucked his hips, throwing the other off of him. In an instant, he had sat up and withdrawn the revolver, holding it point-blank. "I wouldn't try that again if I were you~" he purred. His left hand clenched at his heaving chest, yet his expression was a picture of precise curiosity. Now that he could get a better look at the man, he could start to see how he managed to counterattack so easily.

The man was delirious from pain and blood-loss, the only thing keeping him from passing out being the painkillers that were gradually ebbing away.

"T-they said I went too far …" he began ( _So he knows Japanese.)_ , shuddering away from the muzzle and scooting back. "When I r-ruined your leg."

His pulse sped up. Izaya's grin widened dangerously. "So _you're_ the-"

"I-I was put here l-like you, but my job was different." He held out his hands, like he pleaded for Izaya to understand. "They'd bring me p-people to break, and it w-was fun. I d-did worse things to them than to y-you, but they got angry anyway. I-it was the first t-time they gave me a pair - you and the… c-creature." He stopped to catch his breath.

Izaya processed this with an incline of his head. "Put here by whom?"

A fervent shake of his head. "I-I don't know his name, but h-he was playing with me a-all along. He …" His words were starting to slur, chin dipping to his chest in fatigue, and Izaya took this as an opportunity to shove what supplies he can into his pockets - the bandages, pills, antiseptic, sewing kit, lighter. "He sent me here to kill you."

"Oh~?" Izaya taunted. He ripped the knife from the ground and slipped it into his pocket before throwing the red blanket over his shoulder. Once he pulled himself onto his foot, he moved in awkward jumps to lean back against the nearest wall. It wasn't necessary to train the pistol on the other; the man was too rattled to anything other than sit there, trembling like a leaf. "Your employer isn't very smart then. This is a suicide quest more than anything."

A flicker of muted shock passed over the foreigner's features. "H-how did you know?"

It was the informant's turn to be surprised, a thin eyebrow tugging up as he reached a conclusion. He blinked slowly, in the sort of way one did when resigning himself to the future. _What a nice apology to receive in such a spoiled package~_ There was a small, one-shouldered shrug as he inched along the perimeter. "Well, it was nice knowing you~ How much time is left – two, three minutes?"

The man tugged at his collar, pulling away the shirt to check the time remaining until the bombs wrapping around his chest went off. "One minute. Less." His gaze flickered up to follow Izaya before he looked to the side, submitting to what would become of him. His heartbeat was accelerating with every passing second, but at least- at least he wasn't alone in his last moments.

It was a bonus that his present company was pretty as well, even in his bloodied, battered, pallid state.

"Scared of death?" Izaya chirped. Given his original position, it hadn't taken him long to near the exit.

"Y-yes … aren't you?"

He hopped outside into the warm sunlight and didn't manage to give his answer when a _boom_ sliced through the air, sending him careening down the incline. He rolled over loose leaves, coat catching at jutting pebbles, and was forced into a sudden stop when he slammed into a tree.

… for the second time since he got here. It really was déjà vu, though _now_ , he didn't have a brute to break his fall.

 _It hurts._

* * *

Taking his sweet time, Shizuo hopped while examining the environment around him. Peeking between the foliage was the distinct shimmer of cerulean ocean, the coast by it a rocky gray.

 _I could lay on the beach and relax for a bit, but that'll just make the flea more insufferable the longer I take to get back._

Even with that, he _did_ spare it a thought. Perhaps when Izaya was sleeping, he could do that.

Any occasional thoughts he had were cut short as some sort of explosion rang out, and Shizuo instinctively responded by speeding up his pace of hopping.

 _The shack?! What the fuck happened?! Fuck!_

* * *

A voice called out for Izaya, one which he was very much familiar with. _Of course, he shows up late._

"Oi. Flea!" The voice progressively became louder and clouser. "Izaya! Are you even fucking conscious?!" Shizuo growled, skidding down the incline and leaning a hand next to the tree.

His voice hushed down to a whisper. He raised an eyebrow, and with a tint of worry asked, "Are you awake? Izaya… ?"

There was a shift in the bundle of black fabric and fur-lining before the raven coughed, wiping away the blood with the back of his hand. _And he has the nerve to be concerned about me._ "... Hmph." A warm wetness dampened his chest, pain rippling outward in waves that made him want to scream, yet he remained perfectly silent and controlled. He required new stitches and a change of bandages, as well as another dosage of painkillers.

However, in his fall, they must have slipped out of his pocket, and he slowly shifted around to see the path of flattened grass left in his wake and the smoldering wreckage above. His gaze rerouted to Shizuo, and he frowned.

"... What the fuck happened?" He asked, still faint worry present in his voice, mixed in with curiosity and irritation.

"While you were out gallivanting, Torturer-san showed up blind in one eye, missing an arm, and strapped to bombs." A pause, followed by mildly sarcastic words. "It seems our kidnappers are more apologetic towards me than you are."

His fingers twitched. He _really_ felt the need to light a cigarette now, but as luck found him, he didn't have any.

 _Annoying._

"Tch. I didn't exactly like the torturer guy, but strapping bombs on him…" He shrugged, frowning. "What're your injuries like?"

Izaya moved a hand over his chest. "Bruising, along with those cat-claw gashes opening up. I saved some of our supplies from the wreckage; they must be somewhere there." He gestured obscurely at everything to his side. His new knife was still with him, but the gun had flown off somewhere.

"... So… we're gonna have to stitch up the injuries again. Fuck. Whatever. Stay there, you're like… fuck, just stay here, I don't want you to get infected or something." Shizuo sighed and placed down the branches onto the ground, hopping around Izaya to move over to… vaguely where he pointed to.

"Shizu-chan is so smart~ I wouldn't have thought to 'stay here' if you hadn't told me. Though you got me the branches. Even protozoans are useful, it seems." He felt around his chest to further inspect the extent of his injuries, and he let out a soft hiss as pain reverberated down his side.

Ironically enough, he'd say his amputated leg was in a better state than his torso was at this point. His hand clenched into the earth.

 _Your fault. This is all your fault to start with, Shizu-chan._

Shizuo grit his teeth as his face came out of Izaya's view, and he wholeheartedly repressed the urge to kick him in the side like a footballer would kick a ball into a goal, with added force enough to shatter a brick wall.

Instead, he opted for a "Fucking flea," as he rounded the tree and began his search for anything useful that remained from the explosion.

There was the red blanket caught on a low-hanging tree branch, with the roll of bandages tangled in a bush. The pill container had been brought to a stop in the creek, along with the now-wet sewing kit and lighter. A rodent was nibbling at the bottle of purifiers, though. The revolver currently had birds pecking at it.

He decided to hop on over to the bottle of purifiers and attempt to hop in place as some manner of attempt to spook it off. Jumping up and down very menacingly.

 _Wait…_ A vein throbbed at Shizuo's forehead, and he simply bent over and picked up the antiseptic, pocketing them as the animal skittered away.

 _God I hope the flea didn't see that._

No such luck. Izaya started to giggle, but it shortly devolved into a quiet, pathetic whimper of " _Ow_."

 _I hope the beast didn't hear that …_

No such luck. Shizuo groaned, hopping over to the pill container and sewing kit, but not before throwing in a "Fuck you too, flea," along the way.

He snorted. " _No_ thank you. I have standards, Shizu-chan~"

 _Never running out of ways to piss me off, flea._

" _I_ have standards and you sure as hell don't meet any of them."

"Hmm … in that case, I'm not bored enough and you are not lucky enough, ne?"

 _I really want to fucking strangle the life out of you, Izaya._

Shizuo ground his teeth and responded in nothing but silence, as he continued his search, and in due time, hops on back to Izaya whilst holding everything in his arms, revolver facing _away_ , just to be certain.

Izaya moved to a seated position, leaning back into the pine tree. The air was thick with the fresh scent. He had shrugged off his coat and shirt, now sawing away at soaked bandages with the knife and discarding them into a pile.

Peeling the gauze away stung far more than leaving the situation as is.

The threads holding the gashes shut were frayed and torn, with dark livid bruising, almost as dark as the one ringing Izaya's neck from the candle incident, edged along his pale, thin rib-cage. "Shizu-chan knows how to sew? You'd make such a good house-wife."

In the middle of settling onto the floor, Shizuo glared at Izaya.

"You want me to stick the needle in your wounds, flea?" He set everything down next to them, once again, the revolver pointing _away_ from them. Just as a safety measure.

Izaya picked up the bottle of antiseptic, inspecting it as if he were trying to discern what it was made up of, and unscrewed the cap. "Is Shizu-chan _that_ paranoid that I'm going to shoot him again?" he countered.

Shizuo muttered a "Fuck off," as he picked up the sewing kit and painkillers.

Izaya set to cleaning his wounds, the ghost of a wince every so often flickering across his features, and when he was finally done, he turned to Shizuo dubiously. "You're not going to do a very good job of closing my wounds if you're sitting so far away, you know."

"Do _you_ want to fuckin' close your wounds, flea?" He rhetorically asked, whilst closing the distance between him and the raven.

As a person who seldom kept his mouth shut, Izaya replied anyway. "I would take that over infection and possible death by you shoving in the needle too hard~ How can I trust that you would resist the temptation that has fueled you the entire decade we've known each other?" Despite what was being said, he lifted his back away from the tree so that the other could get a better look at what should be done.

Shizuo closed his eyes. Deep breath in, deep breath out. That prevented him from snapping the sewing needle in half and potentially thrusting it into the damn raven's neck.

He opened his eyes and stared at Izaya, a look of irritation on his face. "Just shut the fuck up. And let me focus. That's _not_ hard to follow."

Izaya begrudgingly obliged, choosing to scrutinize the other instead.

The blond certainly had been acting strangely lately, in that he seemed to be making a conscious effort not to slip into a rage and injure Izaya further. The informant couldn't help the thought that this treatment was only because Shizuo wouldn't want to hurt someone who couldn't fight back, or that he felt that disgusting guilt.

It had _nothing_ to do that it was Izaya the brute was dealing with, and that made his spine tingle with irritation.

 _I'm going to change that._

"Try not to pass out, or spasm too hard," Shizuo muttered, mentally readying himself for this. He did it before, he can do it again, right? _Except this time he's conscious… Whatever, doesn't matter._

Izaya rolled his eyes. "Any day now, Shizu-chan. The few times where your projectiles hit me, I simply came bouncing back. You know I can handle a small needle."

 _Yeah, right, whatever, flea._ Shizuo wordlessly positioned the sewing needle into its place and…

Izaya's expression was controlled, yet his eyes did dip to the side in an effort to conceal the pain.

As carefully as he could, Shizuo closed Izaya's wounds. For the second time.

...

It seemed a lot of things were happening twice.

The stinging sensation took a backseat as Izaya diverted his gaze to the attentive manner in which Shizuo accomplished the task.

The slim needle looked outrageously tiny and fragile in the other's hands; it was a wonder it hadn't broken, and yet … Shizuo's stitches were by no means perfect but were sewn in such a careful, gentle way that made a scowl unwittingly form on Izaya's face.

He could almost imagine the other cross stitching pillows or something, and the image was so repulsive and _wrong_ that he felt sick to his stomach.

Shizuo looked up at Izaya after he was done and raised an eyebrow. "Fuck's got you so uppity?" he said as he set down the sewing kit and grabbed the bandages.

A deliberate smile curved his lips upward, and Izaya winked an eye shut. "Shizu-chan has a cute side~ It's gross."

Shizuo stared at him like he had gone bonkers.

"... _What_ did you just say?"

"Shizu-chan is as disgusting as he is adorable~" Izaya rephrased, enunciating each vowel carefully and flashing a peace sign at the end.

He kept staring at him, blinking carefully. "I'm not hallucinating right? Or did you just-"

"You revoltingly cute protozoan~"

Shizuo was too confused to be angry and continued staring at him. "Did I hit you on the head too hard?"

"Eh~? You make it sound like I'm complimenting you."

"So quit that shit or I'll make you shut the fuck up. It's creepy. Come on, I should bandage your wounds."

Izaya clicked his tongue in dissent, inching away from the other as one did from festering garbage. "I'd much rather do that myself. Any more physical contact with you and I might actually throw up."

Shizuo stared at Izaya as if he doubted him there for a moment - but rubbed the back of his head and sighed, extending the bandages towards him with his other hand. "Suit yourself, flea."

Happy to have at least _that_ go his way, Izaya set to wrapping the gauze snuggly around his chest. It _was_ a tad unorthodox doing it himself, yet he managed to get the job done and set to tucking in loose ends. He left the blood-crusted shirt off, dry-swallowed a painkiller, and gathered the remaining supplies back into his coat.

Now for the crutches.

It was comforting that, fueled by the thought of revenge, it was easy to fight back against the pressure on his chest to focus on the task at had. And with every reminder, it would only become less and less until it disappeared altogether, and all that would be left was the desire for retribution.

He pulled the nearest branch into his lap - it seemed just about the right size for his height - and set to wrapping the forked bit in part of the red blanket. Once it felt thick enough, he sawed the excess fabric away and did the same with the other. "There~ That should work."

Izaya began to straighten as Shizuo curiously asked, "You sure you can stand up without my help?"

The informant braced his hands beneath him against the tree trunk, slowly shimming up. "I'm sure I can manage~" It didn't seem his sole leg agreed with him - with all this movement, the muscles were unused to the strain, and without adrenaline to compensate, it began to throb and tremor.

Shizuo quickly dragged his leg and lifted himself up - "Oi." - wrapping an arm around Izaya's waist. "Be careful and quit being so fucking stubborn, louse."

The support of the other was enough to ease the weight off his leg, and he finally managed to straighten against the tree with minimal disgust and brushed the other's hand away. "Tired of having to deal with me? You can always walk away~ I'm sure you can-"

Shizuo responded harshly, "I'm _not_ just gonna fucking walk away, flea. So shut the fuck up and quit thinking that." He let out a sigh of annoyance. It was tiring to repeat the same thing over and over - just to get it through Izaya's incredibly thick skull.

"Eh~?" Izaya directed his smirk up to Shizuo, eyes glinting. "I'm just struggling to wrap my head around the reason as to _why_. Shizu-chan never really follows any patterns of logic or behavior. Let me remind you that we hate each other, and have hated each other for a decade, yet here you are stitching my wounds and helping me stand."

Long, drawn out silence, as Shizuo contemplated what to say.

Eventually, he responded.

"I don't know," he stated, bluntly.

Izaya's smile faltered once. "Is it charity?"

"What?" Shizuo asked in what could be called genuine surprise. "No, just… I hate you, flea, but I don't just up and _leave_ people like that."

"Even when people up and leave you as soon as they have a basis on which to fear you?"

The stillness stretched onto what felt like eternity. As the seconds dragged on, it was becoming clearer that Shizuo didn't know how to answer that, apart from a frown.

 _Everything to him is pure instinct and unjustified morality._ Izaya rolled his eyes, lips upturning into a forced grin. "Well~ Shizu-chan is a monster, so I can't expect him to-"

" _I'm not a monster. I don't want to be one."_ He was halfway between normal speaking and a murmur, a tone of sadness weighing down those words.

Izaya's head listed to the side, smile becoming genuine as he lightly lifted the other's chin in the manner of appraisal. "Silly beast. Shizu-chan isn't just _any_ monster. You're _my_ monster."

Shizuo found that… _deeply_ disturbing, and wasn't sure how to react, apart from an utterly confused "What…?"

He withdrew from the contact. "I don't expect you to understand. Would you be a dear and pick up my crutches~?" The topic change wasn't as imperceptible as he liked it to be.

"They're… on your side. Can't you pick them up?" Shizuo stared at Izaya and spoke slowly, as his mind was fast to start on work on what exactly Izaya meant.

' _My' monster? What the fuck is that fleabag talking about?_

Izaya certainly didn't like the way Shizuo looked at him then, as if he were trying to see _through_ him. _So my diversion didn't work. One offhand comment is enough to fill up your thoughts? You really are simple-minded._ Izaya pouted, yet he stooped down nonetheless to lift one crutch to tuck into his armpit, then the other. The soft earth and fermenting leaves weren't doing him any favors, and the way the frown was now directed at the ground made it seem like he was cursing at it.

Shizuo shook his head and took his eyes off Izaya, looking at the wreckage of a shack.

"So… what the fuck do we do now?"

"Easy. They turn us towards the next task through which I gather information, and I end it."

"Feels like we've got a long way to go."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** The next chapter might be delayed for 4-7 days due to personal reasons. We apologize ;-;


	10. The Fish, Waiting For Us

**The Fish, Waiting For Us.**

 _Plop-shuffle, plop-shuffle_.

If you had asked Orihara Izaya days before if he imagined that he'd be moving on crutches after a stupidly-fast hopping Shizu-chan carrying his coat full of supplies, he would have laughed in your face.

He wasn't laughing now, much less smiling, as he lowered himself to resorting to this manner of movement. At first, it had been quite awkward, though now he was beginning to adjust to the feeling and was slowly growing faster and more fluid. Quieter, as well. This, however, did attribute to the sweat dampening the back of his neck and the burning of his muscles.

Shizuo had almost disappeared behind the foliage, and Izaya exhaled in irritation as he brought himself to a stop. Even handicapped, Shizuo was a monster. "Would you try not to get yourself lost?" he called ahead.

The blond sighed and turned around, taking a few hops to make himself more visible to Izaya.

"Is it _that_ fucking hard to keep up?"

"Would you like me to remind you of _why_ I can't? Who would have thought that a rabbit-like Shizu-chan would be so fast." An eye-roll. "Look for a lake. I'll wait here."

"..." The rabbit comment only made Shizuo stare in annoyance, before breaking it off to turn around. _Washing off all the blood and dirt would be nice._ "Yeah, yeah, I get your memo." So began his second venture into this island.

Izaya set the crutches against the nearby pine and dropped down, rubbing his aching calf and thigh. He counted around fifteen uneventful minutes before the branches began to rustle as Shizuo appeared once more.

He leaned a hand against the wood, readjusting his hold on Izaya's coat-bag. "So, there's a lake not too far from here. It's about a mile off."

... _A mile?_ "Good work, Shizu-chan~ I'll reward you with dog treats once we get back to Tokyo."

His fingers responded by digging into and tearing off a large chunk of wood, and the tree responded by falling over to the side with a thunderous clash. Shortly afterwards, terrified woodland critters skittered away.

Izaya clicked his tongue in disapproval. "Shizu-chan is provoking the wildlife. How cruel."

"If they knew you, they'd have mauled you by now, flea," Shizuo responded, once again controlling himself to try and not throw something big and sharp at Izaya.

A one-shouldered shrug as Izaya stood once more, gripping the crutches and moving over. _Oddly enough, animals were never fond of me in the first place._ "Lead the way."

Shizuo took his pace _slower_ this time, to compensate for the whiny flea.

Nonetheless, Izaya lagged behind further and further and once again was close to losing sight of the other. He opened his mouth to complain when the omnipresent cacophony of insects grew much louder, and they broke into a clearing.

A lake spanning a football field stretched out in front of them, sunlight scintillating off the surface and turning it to glass. Every so often, a hawk would dip down to snatch a squirming fish in its talons, and deer would settle along the edge to lap away at the water. Ripples of fish would break the stillness. On the opposite side, a river trickled outwards, disappearing behind the circle of conifers.

Taking this opportunity to rest, Izaya dropped down to the lake's edge, washing off his arms before cupping a hand into the clear water to lift it up to his mouth. _Smells clean. There aren't any dead animals either, so this should be fine._

He drank a couple handfuls before wiping the back of his mouth with his hand.

Perhaps to the dismay of Izaya, Shizuo had decided to bluntly state "I need a shower," while hopping over to the lake to sit down and drink.

... _Watching the monster bathe?_ The informant's expression flickered into that of repulsion before he smoothly replied, "Don't drown yourself~"

There wasn't anything to exactly dry himself with, so Shizuo had wondered how he was going to start - there was also the problem of Izaya, since he didn't want him here in a mile radius.

"Don't tell me you're shy, Shizu~"

"I don't fucking want you to be here when I wash myself."

Izaya turned to the other, expression lit up in curiosity and mischievousness intermingled. "If it makes you feel any better, I won't peek."

Shizuo had _absolutely no reason to trust that louse whatsoever_ , but, fine, the flea could do whatever at this point. He just wanted to get the blood and grime off of him.

Eventually, even with the uncooperative leg, he had managed to undress himself, dipping his fingers into the water with concentric circles fanning out. _Warm, for once._ He wasn't exactly sure how he was going to wash himself completely, but wading into the lake, he began scooping up water to start sloughing off the blood and dirt.

You'd assume a guy without a leg wouldn't be able to be so damn _sneaky_ , but Shizuo had no chance to react before his clothes were chucked into the water, landing in a _plop_ several meters off to his side. "Whoops~"

Shizuo was in the middle of cleaning his chest when he heard the sound, which instantaneously grabbed all of his attention.

The false reaction of Izaya's did _not_ help anything.

Shizuo stared at the wet pile of clothes, floating on the surface by the curious guppies that picked at the fabric.

He was at his boiling point; yes, he could still wear the clothes with no problem, and he'd wait out the drying, but that still didn't prevent…

"IIIIZAAYAAAAA!" His voice tremored across half of the island and stimulated a flock of birds into flight.

The man in question lifted his hands away from cupping his ears to wave at the other, and with a completely unapologetic grin, called out, "My bad~" In the process of that, Izaya had turned to look at the other.

Shizuo stood there, clenching a fist towards Izaya, naked. He grit his teeth and glared angrily at him. "Fucking _flea,_ " he growled.

Quite evidently, there was something entirely different between seeing Shizuo in his standard bartender suit and seeing him like _that_ , with rivulets of water trailing down his bare chest and now-clean bleached hair hanging in his eyes. The water blurred everything below hip-height, but seeing that much was more than enough. Izaya couldn't suppress the odd, unplaced feeling - one he settled for calling something akin to disgust.

Except that didn't feel quite right.

Shizuo's gaze slowly turned from angry to confused.

"What… what the fuck are-QUIT FUCKIN' LOOKIN' AT ME LIKE THAT!"

Izaya blinked like he had been snapped out of his reverie. "... I'm observing a monster in its natural habitat. You can't fault me for that."

The gibe lacked the usual bite, and Izaya ended up looking away after than, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You were starin' at me like you were… fuck, I don't want to finish that sentence." Shizuo sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, before turning around and hopping to save his clothes from sleeping with the fishes.

Uncomfortable warmth had permeated Izaya's stomach, and he abruptly snapped out, " _No_ , I wasn't. I told you; I'm merely curious."

 _I really hope you're telling the truth, flea._ But Shizuo had his doubts. Izaya wasn't the most sane of a person, so perhaps…

 _Stop fuckin' thinking about it,_ he told himself, as he grabbed his clothes and lifted them up to examine them. They were _soaked._

A vein throbbed on his forehead, and he rolled the clothes into a ball.

Which he then promptly turned around and threw at Izaya's face like he was the pitcher in a baseball game.

Considering the inner turmoil Izaya was experiencing right now, he didn't have a chance to duck before a sopping wet wad of clothes smacked into his head, sending him sprawling onto his side like he'd been hit by a cannonball.

The pain was enough to snap him out of _whatever_ was happening, and he whipped around to face the other in all of his naked glory. He picked the underwear from the assorted pile between two pinched fingers and held it away from him at an arm's length. "Shizu-chan is a pervert, throwing _this_ at me like that."

Shizuo stared at Izaya like he was holding something back, something he wanted to say. He really, really wanted to say it. In fact, the urge to say it was so great he grinned and snorted in laughter, moving over to the deeper part of the lake to clean the rest of himself.

 _Eh? Why isn't he getting angry?_ "You even look scary when you laugh. No wonder people don't last that long around you; you're a walking human repellent in every way possible."

Shizuo bit his lip to prevent further laughter, and coughed several times. "I dunno, flea. Maybe you wanted it, from how you were starin' at me." Even if his conspiracy theory was right - which he _really hoped_ he was wrong about - the humor in the thought outweighed the dread.

Izaya responded by innocently throwing the boxers into the forest as far as he could, out of sight. "Go ahead and fetch, brute."

"Later. At least it'll give me a reason to not be here when you clean yourself." Speaking of, Shizuo was done, now simply standing in the middle of the lake.

Izaya rolled his eyes, looking away. "Then at least it served its purpose. I don't want perverted Shizu-chan being here either when I bathe."

At least there was one thing they could agree on.

Shizuo hopped over to the other side of the like where Izaya was, and grabbed the clothes next to him. "Your turn."

Keeping his gaze firmly fixed away, Izaya began to peel off his clothes right in front of the other - he was in no way or form shy.

But Shizuo quickly made pace to _not_ look at Izaya and hobbled past him into the forest, to find wherever the hell he threw his boxers.

Izaya began to scrub away the blood clinging to his pants.

For some reason, Izaya couldn't help but feel mild disappointment at not having the chance to observe the other's reaction, perhaps torturing the other just a little bit. It made him think of how, throughout Shizuo's life, he hadn't really ever indulged in anything of that sort, so this was something Izaya didn't know at all about him. Completely uncharted territory. He thought back of their conversation on the stairway.

' _Romantic love is merely a term used to delude oneself into thinking infatuation meant something more than the instinct to reproduce. Though love does exist.'_

Which had been followed by, ' _Whatever_ your _version of that is, it's called a trip to the fucking psychologist.'_

' _Shizu-chan really is a virgin.'_

A blush, coinciding with a gruff, ' _Shut up.'_

And then, the informant's statement, ' _I imagine you like the big-sister type, ne~?'_

Disgruntled with where this train of thought was taking him, he laid the partially damp fabric out and scooted into the lake. The deeper he grew, the more the water buoyancy allowed him to straighten to his full height, and for a moment, he felt satisfied with being able to stand on his own. He made sure to keep his chest's bandages dry, yet he clearly couldn't avoid getting his amputated leg wet.

 _I hadn't accounted for this at all._

Methodically, he washed off the blood and grime, humming to himself.

 _Oh, how I hate you, Shizu-chan._

* * *

Meanwhile, Shizuo had ventured a fair ways into the forest before he caught sight of his underwear stuck at the upper branches of a spruce like a twisted version of a flag.

 _How the fuck did he throw it that far when he's so weak?_

"Tsk. This is so annoying," he muttered to himself, stifling a sudden cough by covering his mouth and hopped up next to the tree. His fingers twitched in memory of holding a cigarette between them, and yet, there was nothing he could do to relieve himself of the irritation and desire, but at the very least, the omnipresent headache took a backseat. _Annoying._

Setting the rest of his clothes onto the ground, he took a step back and braced his leg for a high jump, which sent him soaring into the air, above the forest.

 _Shit, I overdid it._ He caught sight of a vibrant cluster of color to the side, a couple miles away from the lake. _Huh. That's useful._

At any rate, if he didn't prevent his fall, he'd probably create a mini-earthquake and scare off practically the entire populace of the forest. So as he fell, a hand grabbed onto the top of the tree and his shoulder slammed onto the side, bark tearing off and falling onto the floor.

He grabbed his boxers and slung them over his shoulder, as he began the climb down to the ground.

It seems several chattering chipmunks and tittering bush-shrikes had gathered as an audience in the neighboring branches.

Shizuo hopped off and turned around to face the rodents and birds.

 _The fuck…?_ He raised an eyebrow and grabbed the rest of his clothes, dumping the boxers with a movement of his shoulder.

They stared at him.

He stared back.

A lumbering badger appeared off the side, looking up at Shizuo as well.

"Uh…" His eyes darted over to the badger. As strange as this was, he found it to be cute. Though he wasn't sure if leaving right now was the best thing to do or not.

"Go. Shoo." He nudged his shoulder towards the forest.

But they didn't comply.

If anything, more critters appeared - two hedgehogs, several mice, a family of possums, all of which gazing expectantly at Shizuo.

The badger seemed to be the most adventurous, nudging closer to Shizuo in a mixture of inquisitiveness and wariness.

Shizuo's curious frown broke into a smile, and he tried as best as he could to lean in and pet the badger.

The animal backed away slightly before sniffing his fingers, then leaning into the touch. Its striped fur was coarse, yet it seemed to be enjoying the feeling of being stroked.

Shizuo pet it for a few seconds more, and finally stood up, turned around, and began his trip back to the lake.

He didn't mind all the critters following him, but he wondered what Izaya would say to all of this.

* * *

The raven had consented to sitting at the lake's edge, wearing his underwear and nothing more.

He had two long sticks next to him, one of which had been sharpened to a point in a spear and the other yet to have been whittled away at. His face was tilted skyward, expression contemplative, and so he found himself staring at the pale sky with soft, billowing clouds.

He started when the brush began to rustle, and out came a still very nude Shizu-chan, with a band of animals gathered behind him like an army of critters.

The sight was so ridiculous that Izaya burst into unrestrained laughter. "Well, what do we have here~?"

"They followed me," Shizuo stated bluntly.

"Clearly. Shizu-chan finally found friends of the same kind and mental capacity as him, ne?"

Shizuo shrugged. "You don't like animals?"

"Yes, just as much as they don't like me." _Dogs especially._

"Never would've thought." Shizuo replied, dripping with sarcasm.

"I'm not interested in anything lacking emotional depth," Izaya retorted.

 _The hell's his problem?_ Shizuo rolled his eyes, deciding not to reply to that. "Well, I'll let my clothes dry for a while before we get going again."

"You can lay them out next to mine." With Shizuo being his diversion away from his thoughts, Izaya picked up the second stick and knife to begin whittling the edge into a point, flakes of wood catching in his hair. Once that was done, he turned around and tossed it to Shizuo with a grin. "We're going fishing~"

To be fair, that was an actually good idea that Izaya proposed for the first time in forever. He grabbed the spear and hopped over to a rock to set down his clothes. "Works for me."

Izaya held his own and began wading into the water, his back to Shizuo. "And geez, I know your clothes are wet, but at least put some underwear on. No one wants to see that much of you."

Shizuo grumbled, "Yeah, yeah," before complying.

"Why don't you start, ne?" A sly smile was directed at the other as Izaya stopped when the water was just below hip-height, balancing. _I wonder how gloriously Shizu-chan will fail. You can't spear fish with sheer strength, you know._

"Are there even fish big enough for this thing?" He asked, pointing at the sharp bit of the spear.

"Carp, bass, trout, perch, et cetera. Haven't you went fishing before?" Izaya gestured grandly at the water, where the multicolored forms of fish flitted by.

"No." Shizuo stared at the water and gripped his spear.

"Well, neither have I. The technique is basic enough, though."

"Do I just stay here or go inside the water…?" He asked inquisitively.

Izaya rolled his eyes, as if the other said something silly. "Stupid Shizu-chan, you're not going to catch anything _big_ if you fish in water that shallow. Come here."

If a person only utilized ten percent of their brain, then the other ninety percent right now was used as to prevent Shizuo from punching the flea in the face.

But he did consent, leaving his forest friends at the shore and hopping over close to Izaya, despite how uncomfortable he felt doing so.

With spear in hand, he thrusted it into the water in hopes that he could pierce one or two fish. Or plenty. Pure force could be used as extra speed, but he hoped he didn't practically obliterate any fish he speared.

Evidently, Izaya's curiosity was piqued. "What are you doing?"

Shizuo responded as he jabbed it again towards a bass. "What do you think?"

"Failing spectacularly, is what I think."

Some wood chipped off the spear when Shizuo's thumb dug into it as a subtle change in mood.

He wasn't getting anywhere with the multiple times he's tried so far, and he was close to just jumping in and trying to catch fish with his bare hands - which was probably an even _worse_ idea.

"So, you got anything fuckin' better?"

"Of course~ Let me show you how it's done." Izaya's expression was a little too self-satisfied now as his gaze flitted around over the water. "Pay attention. This is your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be taught by one such as myself~"

"I wouldn't miss it for the _life_ of me, flea," Shizuo replied sarcastically, looking at the other.

Without fabric to make him appear larger, Izaya really _was_ skinny. Narrow chest, small waist, slim bird-like shoulders, and boxers hanging lowly on slight hips. The lack of nutrition didn't help either. His ribs jutted out from in between the bandages, the hollow of his curving collarbone made even more prominent, his cheekbones high and delicately bowed.

It was almost feminine.

"What the actual fuck do you eat home, louse?" Shizuo asked in slight surprise and amazement.

"As much as I'd like to entertain you, Shizu-chan, I'm catching _our_ food, so hush." Izaya's expression was a picture of concentration, the tip of his tongue poking out from in between his lips, arms tense. His rustic eyes shifted around, following the dark forms moving about in the water. Abruptly, he grinned.

His movement was a blur, too fast to be caught by the eye, and moments later, Izaya was holding up the spear smugly with a wiggling trout impaled to the point. "You don't have to strike for where the fish _is_ ; you strike for where it _will be_. All it takes is observational skills. Each fish has a pretty distinct behavior, so once you learn it, you'll be able to predict what it will do next quite accurately."

Shizuo absent-mindedly nodded.

Izaya waded towards the other, leaning against the butt of his spear to stand next to Shizuo. He pointed out a perch, tracing its actions. After a couple of minutes, he inquired, "Notice the pattern?"

He nodded again. "Yeah."

"Perfect~ Have a go at it."

Shizuo prepared himself and… thrust! He missed, but he was closer this time around, so progress was made.

Izaya lightly touched the other's arm to get his attention. "You're too early. Don't be impatient, Shizu-chan. Stay calm, collected, focused - think of nothing but the spear in your hand and the fish in the water." Izaya made a grabbing gesture with his hand, pulling a fist towards himself. "When you see the opportunity, seize it. Go ahead and try again."

Shizuo nodded once again and uttered a quiet "Thanks," focusing on the fish moving and the grip on his spear.

His eyes set on the perch, and he tracked the movements of it, readjusting his spear ever so slightly until…

JAB!

As Shizuo raised his spear from the water, the result was a perfectly pierced fish.

Izaya grinned, delighted. "So he can be taught. I make a pretty great teacher, ne?"

Shizuo was somewhat grateful that during those precious seconds, Izaya _wasn't_ going at his nerves like a cheese grater and was instead actually attempting to _help_ him in something.

 _But he's still a fucking flea._

"I'm surprised you actually helped me," he responded, setting the blunt end of the spear onto the floor and examining the perch.

Izaya began to head back to the shore, waving a hand back at Shizuo. "Well~ I'm getting bored, so I decided to leave this to you. It would be a bother if you failed to catch anything and we starved to death."

Shizuo hadn't realized how hungry he was. The raw fish looked very appealing to him, but he swallowed dry and resisted the temptation. "I'll catch a few dozen."

A laugh was let out at that. "I'm sure you will. By the way, you can use the focusing technique to get a handle on your volatile anger. Whenever you feel control slipping, focus on something completely different, and think only of tha-" Izaya made something like a muffled choking sound in the back of his throat as he recalled _who_ he was giving this advice to. "Never mind. Spearing fish has nothing to do with your anger issues."

"Uh…" He took off the perch. "... Thank...s…?" he said with great hesitance and hopped over to grab his shirt, which he laid out and put the now-dead fish onto.

Izaya waved it away dismissively, depositing his own fish next to Shizuo's. "I could be lying, Shizu-chan, or using this as a way to hurt you later on. Don't thank me."

That made Shizuo irritated again. How exactly would that come to use in the future to hurt him? _Izaya's full of shit twenty-four seven._

He sighed and hobbled over back to the lake. "Then get some rest," he said, as his eyes set on another fish amongst many.

Izaya shook his head to himself minutely, as if clearing something, and the waiting animals gave him a wide berth as he set to building a fire.

* * *

The air had filled with the pleasing aroma of grilled fish and crackling of fire. The sky had darkened considerably in an array of reds and purples as the moon chased down the sun.

Izaya handed Shizuo a skewer of fish and took one for himself.

Everything was all good and well until Izaya decided to trill intentionally off-key, using his skewer as a microphone:

" _A round ball, color of green._

 _It's glossy like a piccolo-_ "

Shizuo stopped nibbling on the grilled bass and lifted his head to meet Izaya's taunting gaze. "Why are you singing a song about…" And Shizuo realized why _exactly_ he was singing what he was.

"- _on top of shaomai or curry._

 _Kids don't like it so,_

 _Gonna go get a refund-_ "

Shizuo pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. "I can't fucking believe this…"

" _FISH, FISH, FISH! - FISH~_

 _IF YOU EAT FISH,_

 _YOUR HEAD, YOUR HEAD, YOUR HEAD,_

 _YOUR HEAD WILL BECOME SMARTER!_ "

Shizuo opened his eyes and twitched a smile, before he broke out into quickly subsiding laughter as his mouth parted to belch out his _own_ lyrics:

" _FISH, FISH, FISH!_

 _IF YOU EAT FISH,_

 _YOUR BODY, YOUR BODY, YOUR BODY,_

 _YOUR BODY WILL GET BETTER!_ "

Izaya's expression flicked in surprise before he yelled out the remainder:

" _Now ... together …!"_

The two joined in a chorus.

" _LET'S EAT FISH!_ "

 _THE FISH IS …_

WAITING FOR US!"

" _HEEEEEY!"_

" _HEEEEEY!"_

Izaya promptly collapsed onto his back in laughter, grasping his sides.

And Shizuo was barely able to restrain himself, nearly falling off his rock in the process.

In between breaths, Izaya gasped, "Shizu-chan…! Who knew -" _Wheeze._ " - you had it in you - " _Pant._ " - to have _fun_?"

Shizuo's laughter only subsided a little as he coughed, attempting to get his own opinion in as well.

"I can say the same -" _Breath._ "- about you, Izaya!"

Izaya sat up at that, sobering enough to speak properly, "Come on~ I was always pretty fun." He had the widest grin on his face, and for once it wasn't a biting smirk but one of genuine amusement. His eyes on the other hand had darkened ever so slightly. _Laugh while you still can, Shizu-chan~_

Thankfully, Shizuo had mostly recovered from his fit of laughter, and responded, "I have… no idea… why we did that, or _how_ , but I don't think I regret it."

"Well~" Izaya finally took a bite into the fish, now cold after their impromptu duet. " _I_ originally did it to annoy you, but it seems it had quite the opposite effect. You really are unpredictable."

Shizuo shrugged, his grin not fading away just yet. "I knew the song for a while, Izaya, I just didn't think _another_ person knew it."

Izaya hummed the tune under his breath as he continued to eat. He opened his mouth to speak, but all at once, his downright _giddy_ expression dropped. Beyond Shizuo, animals frantically scampered out of the line of woods, leaping past them. A wall of mist permeated the forest, and even from here, the acidic tang invaded his nostrils. The hair on the back of his neck rose up.

Almost immediately, Izaya reacted by dropping the makeshift skewer and gathering their things.

Shizuo raised his head in surprise and lifted an eyebrow. "Huh?"

Izaya shoved the bundled up coat to the other's chest and reached for his crutches, pulling himself up. His jaw was tense as panic pressed down in the back of his mind - _I'm not fast enough. I won't make it_. "Unless you want to suffocate, _move._ "

Shizuo didn't exactly object and grabbed the coat. "What…?" He asked, as he stood up. "What're you going on about?"

"Look _behind_ you, brute."

Shizuo did, and what he saw made him widen his eyes in shock, quickly turning his head back around. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck." The fog was fast encroaching.

Izaya was already moving at a fairly fast pace, not waiting for the other. Blood and adrenaline hummed in his ears, as well as an emotion he wasn't at all familiar with - fear.

Shizuo quickly caught up.

"You _need_ to be carried, or else you're gonna fucking die, Izaya. It's faster than you are." Shizuo had tried to keep his voice as controlled as possible, but the cracks of panic shone through.

The other's statement made Izaya's grip on the crutches falter, and he stumbled, catching himself right before he could fall. He glanced over his shoulder at the wisps surrounding their campfire, snuffing out the flame and instantly turning the accumulated fish to a blistery char.

If Izaya was too slow, he was going to suffer the very same fate.

"...Fine."

Shizuo lifted up the coat and bit on the knot with enough force to keep it on, and quickly wrapped his arms around Izaya to carry him fireman-style. The informant barely managed to keep his grip on the crutches, and the view he was offered now only made the lump in his throat grow.

He dug his nails into the wood, eyes forcing downward.

 _Relying on the beast to save my life._ Again.

… _how pathetic._

Shizuo's eyes were set forward - in the darkness of night, he was careful not to lose his balance. Yet with Izaya on his back, hopping on one leg, and being afraid that one mistake would cost _both_ of their lives, his mind settled on one thought, as he navigated through the forestry, jumping over trees if necessary.

 _Don't trip. Don't trip. Don't trip._

Izaya could notice ragged breathing from Shizuo, and if he had the right angle, would notice beads of sweat trailing down his forehead.

Izaya's forearms tightened over the other, and he whispered, both to himself and to Shizuo, "Stay calm. We're not going to die." _We still have unfinished business._

Shizuo responded with silence as adrenaline pumped through his veins, each hop sending them a meter, two, three into the air.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he broke into a clearing, and through the muddled thoughts, recalled it from his escapade after his underwear. From next to him, Izaya muttered, "It stopped."

Shizuo continued hopping around. "I can't stop. Momentum."

"Not _you_. The mist is gone."

"Did you fucking pay attention to physics class? If I try to stop, I'm probably going to bust your fuckin' ribs."

Izaya inhaled to compose himself, and as he craned his neck to look at the other, realized _where_ they were.

Rows of empty stalls shield by awnings lined a path lit up by paper lanterns. Elaborate kabuki masks sat at display, the sizzling sound and aroma of a street vendor's food in the fryer permeated the emptiness, and massive obnoxious signs detailed both games and prices invaded his vision. Faintly, he could hear the clink of a shrine maiden's chimes, carried by the night wind.

"Slow down."

"I _CAN'T!_ "

" _Well_ then, not to alarm you or anything, but you're going to slam into those stalls."

In the span of a second, Shizuo did several things.

He dropped the coat, let go of Izaya, turned around _in the middle of the air_ , proceeded to grab Izaya in the same way he did back at the truck, and decided that gravity was going to do the rest.

Shizuo's back slammed through wood. He bounced once and skidded across the floor for several meters, wearing a deep groove into the ground before eventually coming to a stop.

Shizuo took a deep breath.

"You happy now?"

Considering Izaya's face was now forcefully buried into Shizuo's chest, he mumbled out a muffled, "Yes," hands knotted around the other's decimated shirt.

As if on cue, fireworks launched into the sky, exploding in a beautiful shower of iridescent sparks.


	11. Hate Into Electricity, To Light Up

**Hate Into Electricity, To Light Up The World.**

"Well, they seem to have an affinity for the dramatics. Would you let me go now?"

"The feeling's mutual, flea," Shizuo grumbled, as he slowly pushed the raven off his dust-coated self.

Considering he now actually had a _view_ of the fireworks, Izaya rolled onto his back and turned his face skyward, pulling his bangs back to admire the reds and blues and greens boom into blossoms of color. "Pretty, ne?"

Shizuo stared at the fireworks for a while, the explosions reflecting off his irises, at hesitantly replied, "Yeah... they are."

Izaya snorted. "What's with the pause? You don't like fireworks?"

"Nah." A beat. "Just felt like you were gonna try and piss me off if I said that." The words flowed like water.

"Well, I'm appreciative of pretty things enough to not ruin the moment quite yet." He reached a hand up, fingers pulling into a fist as though to grasp the evanescent sparks. A flash of teeth. " _Though-_ "

"Just shut your mouth and watch the fireworks."

Izaya rolled his eyes and glanced at the other sidelong.

Shizuo's profile was outlined by the warm light of the lanterns, disheveled hair tangled with debris, hazel eyes reflecting the starbursts in the sky above them, lips parted slightly as he breathed.

Izaya looked back at the sky, hand dropping to rest against his sternum; his pulse was erratic. "I very much like the sound of my own voice, you know. Don't you think it creates a nice ambiance~?"

Shizuo replied as bluntly as he could, deciding not to play into the other's hands. "No."

He quieted after that, a ghost of a grin upturning his lips as he cradled his head in his hands. _How gross._

Soon enough, the sky darkened, and the whisper of bells filled the silence once more. Izaya sat up, looking around to settle his gaze on the shrine on the uphill. "Mind fetching me our things~? It seems our kidnappers want us to head up there, and given that fog, they aren't going to take no for an answer." A pause. " _Not_ that we aren't going to sabotage their plans."

Shizuo grunted, and slowly but surely, stood up on his leg, hopping over to the coat and crutches and grabbing them. "So we're going inside that place?"

"Clever observation." Carefully, Izaya pulled himself up, accepting the crutches from the other and positioning them beneath him.

 _Tch. Fucking flea._ The two began to head in the direction, the oddly enchanting sounds growing louder as they stopped underneath the crimson arches - _torii_. "What is this place, anyway?" Shizuo asked, staring at the stone staircase leading up.

"A Shinto shrine. What else?"

Shizuo bit his lip at that, but provided no further comment.

Tallying this as his own private victory, Izaya started up the stairs. Compared to Shizuo's ungraceful hopping, his progress was at a snail's-pace. "You know what?" Izaya called out. "Go ahead, Shizu-chan~ I'll be there in a bit." _He_ would _make some good target practice if there really is anyone up there._

Shizuo let out a low growl in annoyance. "It's like I'm asking to get shot. If I do, you'll pay me back _twice_ that, you fucking louse."

But he obliged, preparing his next hop to shoot up into the air and forwards, good enough to land at the top with… minimal damage done to the floor.

He passed by the trickling purification front and intricate stone lanterns, stopping before the kagura den, where soft music flowed through the air, punctuated by the jingle of chimes and shuffle of feet.

As he neared it, he caught sight of a swirling red skirt, long elaborate sleeves, and dark, twirling hair ornamented with white ribbons.

A woman.

Shizuo stopped in his place and nearly fell over from surprise. _What?_

"Uh… hey?"

Her placid eyes flickered to him once before she continued the traditional dance. It was entrancing - almost ethereal - the fluidity of her movements, the play of light against her instrument, the whisper of her skirt's folds against the floor.

Shizuo's eyes darted across the area. _Is this a trap?_

"Ah~ The _kagura_ dance."

Shizuo flinched at Izaya's sudden presence. You'd think crutches would be _loud_. "Why _here_ , though? Something doesn't feel right."

Izaya's hands and mouth were damp, and he raised an eyebrow at Shizuo. "Shizu-chan, you didn't even purify yourself? Where's your knowledge of tradition?"

"I never really bothered to learn."

"Disrespectful simpleton."

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "Like I can trust this place with anything. I'd apologize for it back in Japan, but we're not _in_ Japan." He emphasized the word _in_ , just to assure that they were probably nowhere near Japan as of right now.

"Eh~? So you realized." Izaya's attention quickly went to the shrine maiden, who had ceased her dance and was slowly walking over to them with a tray in her hand. As she neared them, she bowed her head, and Izaya reciprocated the gesture.

 _I don't like where any of this is going._ Nonetheless, Shizuo at least bowed back.

"What's this~?" On the tray, there were two small tablets, screens sleek and dark, with arm bands extending from either side. "Shizu-cha-"

 _Bang._

A choking sound emitted from Shizuo, and he grabbed his neck, a single trail of blood coming out from both sides, running along his shoulder.

Izaya barely had enough time to discern where the sharpshooter was and whip around, lifting his hand as another shot rang out. A pinprick of pain starburst at the center of his palm, and he turned over his hand to inspect the wound.

The only reason he wasn't moving for cover was because this _definitely_ wasn't a bullet, so the assailant didn't have the intention to kill them.

A metal pellet had buried around a few centimeters deep, the skin pinching inward with it and oozing blood. He lightly touched the cool material, fingers twitching back at the just-there tingle of electricity.

Meanwhile, Shizuo's breathing constricted as he took his hands off of his neck, shook off tiny drops of blood onto the floor, and turned around with a _very_ angry look in his eyes.

Izaya rotated his hand, fascinated. "Oh, calm down, Shizu~ You aren't going to die."

"I _know_. I just-" Breath in. "- want to punch the bastard who shot me." Breath out.

The woman from behind them hadn't flinched, hadn't moved at all, as if she had blended back into white noise. She lightly nudged Shizuo with the tray -

He whipped around and grabbed the woman by her kimono jacket, the platter clattering to the ground, with his fist raised and expression of fury, before it quickly softened into confusion and guilt as he let go, unsure of what to say.

She blinked at him before slowly bending down to retrieve the fallen contents.

Izaya held up a hand to his mouth, feigning shock. "How sacrilegious. You know shrine maidens represent purity? What do you think will happen to her now that she's been tainted by a monster?"

Shizuo sucked a breath in. "Go fuck yourself."

" _Cursing_ too. My, my, you know no bounds. The least you can do is apologize." Izaya shrugged, setting his crutches against the wall to lean back and poke at his palm. It definitely felt strange. "Not that she can answer anyway."

A vein throbbed on Shizuo's forehead, but he sighed, deciding on trying an attempt to recollect himself. "I'm sorry," he bowed, and turned around to hop over to Izaya, one fist balled. "Are you _trying_ to die?"

His smug gaze flickered up to the other as the woman stood back up, holding the devices out. "Show some restraint." He stuck out his tongue. "They cut it off of her. Can't you tell?" A pause. "Of course you can't," he marveled mockingly.

Shizuo felt his anger rising by the milliseconds. "This is the _most_ restraint I've ever shown you. So shut the… tch. Just put on the arm-band or something, I'll put on mine."

Izaya snickered, accepting it from the woman and wrapping it around his hand. He looked back at her curiously - it had been a while since he interacted with a human, and yet, the first one he comes across was so _entirely_ broken.

It was beautiful.

"Oh, Shizu-chan. The thing in your neck - try pulling it out." _Go ahead, guinea pig._

"I'm not stupid enough to dig a finger in my neck and pull a metal ball out." He replied, grabbing the arm-band and muttering a "Thank you."

She ducked her head down once and retreated back to her den in a swirl of skirts to pick up her chimes.

"What an interesting lady, ne~? It's been awhile since I saw someone with eyes so hollow."

Shizuo said nothing in response as he set to putting on his watch.

Izaya fiddled with it before pressing down on a button. The screen flickered on, detailing _quite_ the interesting information. He made sure to control his expression, biting the inside of his cheek to keep his smile from growing larger. "Did you turn it on?" he asked innocently.

Shizuo messed around with the watch, looking for a way to- _Ah, there we go._

 **[ Date with Izanyan! o(*ω*)o ]**

Shizuo was mind-boggled.

 _What._ "What."

Izaya peered at Shizuo's wrist before holding his hand out. "See~? They made one to sound like you too."

 **[ Are you worthy for Heiwajima Shizuo? ]**

"Shizu-chan is so bold~" His expression soured slightly as he read what was supposed to be an imitation of himself. "Though really, 'Izanyan?'"

Shizuo balled his fists and ground his teeth. "Tch. I can't fucking believe this."

"Wait till you read the rest."

"Ah," he sighed in annoyance, "guess I have to."

 **Ground rules, because Shizu-chan is a meanie** └(○｀ε´○)┘

When you lose, you will have 40 mA conducted through you~ Every time I win, the number will increase by twenty!

No ditching me, Shizu~ If you do, I'll shock you to death! ( #`⌂´)/┌┛

Don't be late either. You'll make me upset (̥ ̥এ́ ̼ এ̥̀)̥̥ You'll be shocked with 100 mA, with a penalty increase of ten for every five minute delay!

No touching (yet (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ ) Perverted Shizu-chan has to respect my maiden boundaries! (๑•́ ₃ •̀๑) Try to touch me, and you'll have enough amperage to stop you!

Shizuo practically growled when he read through it. "What the fuck is _this_?"

"Read mine~"

 **The rules, because Izaya~kun has to learn to appreciate the hard way~**

Winners are the only possible option here, Izaya~kun, so if you lose I'll send 5 mA to you! And every time _I_ win, it will increase by five! Have fun~

Aah, I don't like being alone. So if you even _think_ about abandoning me, I'll send so much that you'll drop dead from my love!

I don't like people who are late, Izaya~ So if you disobey, I'll send 10 mA, and it'll increase by 2 mA for every five minutes you delay the _inevitable~_

No touching the prize _yet_ , Izaya~kun. If you do, I'll have to _make_ you stop~

"They _definitely_ got yours right~ For Shizu-chan to think of me that way makes me want to throw up." Izaya puckered his lips, fluttering his eyelashes. _Now to push harder ..._ "' _Oh, punish me more, Shizuo-sama~'_ "

Shizuo growled once again with seething anger. He ground his teeth harder and felt his fists tighten, before instinctively sending one flying towards Izaya's face.

Before his hand could make it, an electric shockwave undulated from his neck, numbness making his arm go slack.

Izaya was unruffled, nodding to himself in satisfaction. "So it works! Good test-run."

Shizuo let out a groan of pain and pulled his arm back. _Kill 'em kill 'em kill 'em kill 'em._

Hopefully those thoughts would calm the blond down enough so that he didn't kill himself trying to beat the hell out of the raven.

"Let's see what else there is~"

No matter who wins, let's have fun, ne? (ﾉ^∇^)ﾉﾟ The loser gets knocked unconscious, and the winner gets a special prize, nyaa~ If we tie, we both get painfully shocked, boo! ｡゜(｀Д´)゜｡

Fight your hardest Izaya-kun, you might get to be top if you win. Ahaha, who am I kidding? I'll _always_ be top~ The person who wins gets a special prize, and the person who loses gets a big K.O. to their name.

The miniature clock displayed in the corner of the tablet read 6:53 PM.

Izaya frowned as he flared with inexplicable annoyance. "Shizu-chan, if we had sex, wouldn't _I_ be top?"

Shizuo stared at Izaya like he was just rambling off something in several magnitudes of insanity.

"W-... no… what? How am I supposed to answer this question? _Why_ are you asking me that?" He was more confused than irritated.

It appeared to bother Izaya greatly, though if it were the thought of engaging in intercourse with Shizuo or being bottom wasn't quite clear. "These things are important, you know. It sullies my name to be reduced to _this_."

Shizuo rubbed his eyes and pinched his nose.

"... Top. I'd be top," he _very_ reluctantly answers, "I don't know what the fuck they drugged you with, flea, but it must've been something heavy."

"Eh?" The informant clearly wasn't satisfied with that answer and crossed his arms. "Why do you think that? Just because you're larger has nothing to do with this."

"Izaya, what the hell is wrong with you? We're not gonna get on bed and _screw_ , if that's what you're fucking thinking," he replied, voice seeping in irritation.

"Hmph."

Afterwards, both of them examined the next part, separated by a simple map of the area.

 _ **Scoreboard:**_

Izanyan ~

Shizu-chan ~

 **[ 7:00 PM ]**

Goldfish Scooping! Catch me a big one ( ＾∇＾)

Winner:

 _ **Scoreboard:**_

Izaya~kun -

Shizuo~sama -

 **[ 7:00 PM ]**

Goldfish Scooping. Go wild~

Winner:

" _Goldfish_ scooping?" Shizuo asked in surprise, the question aimed more at himself than the other.

Izaya hadn't completely gotten over their previous topic, yet he jerked his chin to the side and conceded to say, "The stall is around that way. I am not too keen on getting shocked for lack of punctuality, and we should at least try a few to gather information."

 _The stalls...? Oh, right. So that's what they're for._ "Yeah, alright." Shizuo began hopping towards the general direction Izaya said.

They stopped in front of - you guessed it - a plastic tub of goldfish. Two fish scoops were set next to buckets filled halfway with water - one pair red, the other blue. Izaya set his crutches down, tilting his head inquisitively.

"What the hell are we even supposed to do? How do we know who wins?"

Izaya rolled his eyes, picking up the red net with matching container. "The one who gets more fish, obviously. Don't kill them now~"

"I'm _not,_ " he grumbled, picking up his blue equipment.

"Are you sure about that? Shizu-chan is about as gentle as an avalanche." Considering how the other had a 0% chance of landing a hit on him, Izaya was getting confident in his teasing.

"Would you just shut the fuck up and start?" Shizuo had started to sound increasingly annoyed.

The clock read 7:05 PM, and the air was punctuated by the bay of a trumpet. "That's our cue~"

The fish swam about in the water, scales glimmering iridescently. Izaya dipped his net into the water, watching them scatter away. A little more maneuvering and precise timing, and a fish plopped into his bucket.

Meanwhile, Shizuo took deep breaths, trying to steady himself. The minor holes in his throat did _not_ help, but nonetheless, he swept his net in to grab a fish and… failed.

Shizuo groaned in annoyance.

Two consecutive _plops_. Izaya snickered. "Has Shizu-chan learned _anything_ from our last fishing experience? Well, when faced with a species of far superior intelligence, I can understand that you'd feel _intimida_ -"

"This is annoying," Shizuo interrupted bluntly, as he threw the net aside and emptied his bucket of water to set it down next to him.

He leaned forwards and placed his hands under the tub, and without much effort, he uprooted it from its resting place and dunk its contents into his bucket, stopping short of overflow.

"..."

Their watches beeped, a monotonous voice trailing out.

" _Ding ding ding. We have a winner._

 _Heiwajima Shizuo-san."_

A bolt of electricity shot up Izaya's hand - not enough for it to hurt but enough for him to feel mildly disconcerted. He rubbed the place where the pellet was embedded, forcing a grin. "Really, Shizu-chan~? Resorting to your brutish methods?"

He set the plastic container down and brushed the displaced water off his hands.

"It's gonna take you more of that to shut you the fuck up, huh?"

"Not in public~ Geez, _control yourself, you animal._ "

"Hurry the hell up."

 _Kill him kill him kill him kill him._

Shizuo restrained the urge to punch Izaya in the face.

"You know you want to~"

Oh, Izaya, ever the voice of reason.

 **[ 7:00 PM ]**

Goldfish Scooping! Catch me a big one ( ＾∇＾)

Winner: Waa ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )‧º·˚

Goldfish Scooping! Go wild~

Winner: Better luck next time~

 **[ 7:15 PM ]**

Miniature Rifle Range! Teehee, I got this ヽ(=^･ω･^=)丿

Winner:

Miniature Rifle Range! Accuracy is important when a person has to use their tools, ne, I~za~ya~kun?

Winner:

"I'm going to fucking tear off the arms of whoever wrote this."

"Why?" Izaya questioned innocently, starting for the next location. "They got you down to the syllable. Is Shizu-chan tsundere after all?"

If one could touch it - Shizuo's blood could melt even the strongest of metals - and fleas.

"No. So shut the fuck up."

"Does your limited dictionary consist of just _that_ statement?"

Shizuo balled a fist. "Do you _ever_ learn when to be quiet, louse?"

"If you want that so badly, you know what you have to do~" Izaya winked at him from over his shoulder. _I didn't know teasing Shizu-chan like this would be so much_ fun _, no matter how nauseous it makes me feel._

Shizuo - once again - involuntarily swung a fist at Izaya's face, but as he realized what that would result to him, he was already too late.

 _Besides, I now have my own small way of punishing him~ A little electricity isn't going to compare to what you've done to me._

Electricity pulsed through him, forcing his arms to drop just short.

Shizuo let out a sharp yell of pain and instinctively took a step back, staring at Izaya with hate-filled eyes.

"Go to hell, flea."

Izaya waved off the insult, grinning. "Can't blame me for taking advantage of this, ne?"

 _Think of something else, and don't play into this fucker's hands._

He averted his gaze from Izaya, clutching his tense, shaking right arm with his left hand. "Let's just go."

* * *

 **[ 7:15 PM ]**

Miniature Rifle Range! Teehee, I got this ヽ(=^･ω･^=)

Winner: Don't be a sore loser, Shizu-chan!

Miniature Rifle Range! Accuracy is important when a person has to use their tools, ne, I~za~ya~kun?

Winner: Congratulations, Izaya~kun. Maybe your sharpshooting skills will come in _handy._ -

 **[ 7:30 PM ]**

Dime Pitch! Lucky~

Winner: Eh? No faaaair ｡ﾟ･（ ﹏ ）･ﾟ｡

Dime Pitch! I _excel_ at these kinds of things~

Winner: Too bad, oh so sad! Not everyone can control their handiwork oh so precisely as I can~

As predicted, the shooting range was quite the easy win for Izaya. However, the luck-reliant dime pitch … not so much.

He bit back on a yelp as he felt current snap through him, nerves momentarily short-ending.

And with that, Izaya came to a single conclusion.

… He had to cheat.

What was up next was "Ring the Bell," and Izaya had just successfully completed his turn and passed the mallet to Shizuo. "Your turn~" He hopped back to give leeway to the other, leaning against a crutch as a hand slipped discreetly into his pocket to grasp the handle of his knife.

"Okay… slowly…" Shizuo raised the mallet.

A flick of a wrist, the glimmer of a knife whizzing past, chopping the wood cleanly in half and separating the hammer's head from the handle. It dropped lightly onto the plate.

The bar didn't pass 50.

"Izay-ah, FUCK!" He ground his teeth and grabbed his throat in vain, and instinctively bent a knee, taking a step forward.

Izaya gave him a wide berth as he took advantage of the other's pain to retrieve the switchblade, folding it into his pocket. "My fingers slipped~"

Shizuo's present opinion on Izaya was very quickly dropping by the second, as he rubbed his neck and straightened himself. "Next… _one,_ " he said, enunciating each word with venom.

 **[ 8:00 PM ]**

Ring the Bell! Don't send it flying off into space!

Winner: Shizu-chan didn't go easy on me, did he? （｀Δ´）!

Ring the Bell! Don't do anything _dirty_ , Izaya~kun.

Winner: Don't win too much now, I'm starting to get riled up~ I don't want you to start having a sense of choice.

 **[ 8:00 PM ]**

Apple Bobbing! Take care not to choke (,,꒪꒫꒪,,)

Winner:

Apple Bobbing! My _personal favorite~_

Winner:

 _That comment of fake-Shizu-chan's is helpful …_

A large wooden barrel filled with red and green apples floating at the top, with two smaller containers on either side for the players to deposit their prizes.

Both Izaya and Shizuo stood at the lip.

The informant made a show of clasping his wrists behind his back.

 _It can't be that hard._ Shizuo grabbed both sides of the barrel - being careful not to split it into two.

The blare of an air-horn signified the start.

Shizuo took the lead by grabbing the first green apple in the barrel.

However, as he resurfaced, Izaya suspiciously hadn't moved at all and instead cupped his hands on either side of his mouth like a megaphone. "You're very rough with that apple, ne, Shizu-chan~? Perhaps you need some training."

The edges of the apple cracked, and he took a hand off the barrel, spitting out the apple into his palm.

"What did you just say?"

"I was offering my _help_ , silly~ You're not going to get any action with your skills right now."

Shizuo's thumb dug into the apple. "Can you shut the hell up?

"Ah, Shizu-chan, you have to work _with_ your mouth, not against it." He winked, using his thumb to tug his own bottom lip down.

Shizuo spoke angrily through grounded teeth,"I swear, if you don't shut up _right_ now."

 _8:13 PM. One more should be enough to push him off the edge~_

"What's the problem, Shizu-chan~? Haven't you wanted to be gentle in the things you do? I'll give you a _head start._ "

Shizuo's thumb ripped through the centre of the apple, tearing it in half, and instinct took over. His next course of action was to sprint over to Izaya and, for a _third_ attempt, punch him out on the spot.

"Zap," Izaya narrated helpfully, pointing a finger-gun as electricity zipped through Shizuo's neck, down his limbs, causing him to stumble.

"Scumbag flea… Izaya…"

With that, the informant moved forward and swiftly dipped his head down to grasp a single apple, just to drop it in his barrel.

8:15 PM.

"Isn't 100 milliamperes fun?"

Shizuo stumbled around, grabbing at his throat, breathing unevenly and raggedly, letting out a few noises of pain in the meanwhile.

"Iz-" _Breath._ "Izaya, I-" _Breath._ "I'll fucking kill you." _Breath. Breath._

After regaining balance, he stood in one place, looking down at the floor, while massaging the back of his neck with one hand, the other cupping the front.

Izaya laughed, spreading his arms wide tauntingly. "With the rate things are going at, you'd sooner die than kill me~"

If someone's opinion of a person ranged from 0 to 100, Shizuo's opinion of Izaya dipped into the _negatives._

"Go." _Breathe._ "Away."

"Can't do that just yet~" Izaya tapped the watch.

"I'm going to kill you when we're out."

 **[ 8:00 PM ]**

Apple Bobbing! Take care not to choke (,,꒪꒫꒪,,)

Winner: I'm so good at this, nyaa!

Apple Bobbing! My _personal favorite~_

Winner: Perhaps I underestimated you. Mmm, but you haven't beaten my expectations yet~

 **[ 8:15 PM ]**

BREAK: Hurray! Photobooth selfies with Shizu-Shizu! ❤⃛ヾ(๑❛ ▿ ◠๑ ) The no-touching rule is disabled, but keep your hands to yourself! Don't hurt me now~

BREAK: A well deserved break, ne? Enjoy your time with me, Izaya~kun. You can touch, but don't get any ideas~

"But first … Selfies!" His voice pitched up with exaggerated enthusiasm.

"I'm not taking any fucking _selfies_ with the flea."

Izaya tapped his chin. "I may not be an expert on monster biology, but I'm sure suffering from the delay penalty for a while will make you go into cardiac arrest~"

"It's like _I_ was their target, and not you," Shizuo muttered angrily. " _Fine._ Let's go."


	12. Between A Rock, And Hard Place

**Author's Note:** We hit the 50k mark~ This calls for celebration! Thanks to all the readers who stuck with us till this point and will hopefully see us through to the end of this fic. The reviews really give us the motivation to continue so please continue letting us know what you think!

* * *

 **Between A Rock, And Hard Place.**

The booth was tiny. Painfully tiny. So tiny that Izaya was practically sitting on his lap to fit in next to him.

His flea scent was _everywhere_.

"Shizu-chan! It's starting. Get ready~"

A grumble came from the blond as a countdown initiated.

Izaya nudged the other's shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "You're supposed to smile, you know."

 _Click._

"Unless I get shocked for not smiling, I'm _not_ fucking smiling."

"So scary~ How can I get you to smile then?"

"You _don't._ Dumb fuck," Shizuo pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to quell the rising headache.

Izaya flashed a peace sign just in time for the second picture.

"So scary~" Hoping to get a reaction out of the other, he attempted smoothing out the furrow between the other's brows. "It's not going to kill you."

Shizuo sighed, as if he was disappointed at what Izaya was doing. "Tsk, you're so fucking stubborn."

Third picture.

 _So that didn't work. Hmm~_ Izaya leaned in close to the other, supporting a hand on Shizuo's shoulder. " _I hate you._ "

"It didn't take a philosopher to figure that one out."

Izaya blew into his ear.

 _Click._

Shizuo's tone turned from neutral and bored to annoyed and angry in a heartbeat. "Anyone ever tell you that's _really fucking annoying?_ "

Izaya leaned away, lips curved into a practiced grin. "Never had the opportunity to do that before~ Happy to be the first?"

"I'd have preferred drinking acid. Out of a barrel."

"When you put it like that, it _almost_ sounds like you don't like me~"

"Wonder how long it took you to figure that one out."

"Mmm. You do send mixed signals." Izaya was _definitely_ teasing by now, if it wasn't glaringly obvious before.

"You're on a new level of being a hypocrite, flea. Congrats."

Their conversation was interrupted by the shuffle of their photo roll being printed out. Immediately, Izaya moved off the other and outside, snatching the piece of paper to examine it.

" _Pft- HAHAHAHA!_ "

 _Think about something else. Try not to break down the booth. Try not to tear the flea inside out._ Shizuo repeated that mantra in his head approximately a dozen times - He lost count. - as the blond stood up and walked outside, feeling murderous rage being quelled inside him.

He was met with the pictures being shoved into his field of vision, Izaya smirking from behind them. "Look at your face~! Shizu-chan really isn't photogenic."

The first picture was of Izaya turning towards the other, whose expression was set in a poker-face.

The second wasn't that different, except Izaya held up two fingers next to his jaw.

As for the third, it caught the informant with a hand against the other's brows, Shizuo halfway between what could have been a sigh or a sneeze.

And the fourth … let's say the angle really didn't do reality justice.

Shizuo threw a fist at Izaya's stomach. Vaguely, over the cloud of rage that settled across his vision, he felt electricity force its way through his neck, numbing his arm, but it was too late for it to stop his punch from connecting with the flea.

The slip of paper fell from Izaya's grip, fluttering to the ground as the informant was sent flying to the side. For a moment, he was still, before tilting his head to spit out blood.

Just as Izaya had planned it, the final picture appeared as though Izaya had his mouth pressed against the other's ear, and as if in response, Shizuo had closed his eyes, teeth slightly gritted and a vein throbbing on his forehead.

Shizuo jolted, grunting in pain and grinding his teeth, before he picked up the roll and shredded it with his hands.

"I don't know _what_ your fucking problem is," he seethed spitefully.

Izaya sat up, laughing as he wiped away the blood spotting his lips with the back of his hand, smearing red. "Ever stopped to consider that it might be you?"

" _Fuck_ you." Shizuo stared at Izaya, his hazel eyes concealing an enormous amount of anger.

Izaya cradled his battered chest - if the shock hadn't bitten off the edge of Shizuo's punch, he certainly would have broken more than a few ribs. Perhaps puncturing his lungs? It seemed some of his stitches had opened up yet again. _Play so roughly and I really will die._ His thoughts contradicted the words that slipped past his lips unrepressed. "But Shizu-chan, that's bestiality~"

"Why can't you just fucking _die?!_ Why can't you try and be- you know what? It's not even fucking worth it. You won't change. You _never_ change, flea." He was _this_ close to walking over to Izaya and giving him another blow.

Slowly, the raven stood, balancing on his leg. "If Shizu-chan acted a _little_ more human, then maybe I would make the effort."

"I hope they run a fucking _taser_ across your face." He was brimming with rage at this point, like a powder keg ready to be blown apart.

His eyes narrowed. "Eh~? So long as you go first."

Unfortunately, there was nothing nearby for Shizuo to grab to. Instead, he moved over to Izaya and grabbed _him_ by the throat instead, yet oddly enough, the electricity wasn't set off.

" _You really want to fucking die, huh?"_

 _How curious._ "All it takes is a _little_ pressure to crush my throat, you know." Even in this situation, Izaya had the nerve to smile arrogantly. "You wouldn't do it."

The grip around Izaya's neck tightened.

"I wouldn't?" Shizuo asked, glaring at Izaya with burning hatred.

 _Ack. It hurts._ "Shizu-chan is too soft."

Izaya could feel his throat closing in. "I don't have a reason to let you live, you scumbag."

Even as his air supply dwindled, he laughed. "You act all high and mighty then accuse me of using you. You're relying on me just as much, ne? You can't bear being alone, and so you turn to _me_ , your worst enemy."

Shizuo spit on the floor and reached for Izaya's left wrist. "Maybe I won't kill you. Not now - at least - but…"

"'But?'" Izaya echoed, voice rasping. "You decide to hold my hand? How cute~"

"But here's a warning. Take it to heart."

And with a swift, clenching motion of his fingers, a snap of a bone was heard, before the other flung the raven away from him.

He inhaled sharply against the scorching pain. Izaya's face was turned to the ground, expression concealed from the other's view, so he allowed himself a grimace, nails wearing red crescents into his trembling right hand.

A couple beats later, he was sitting up, grinning tensely. His wrist was twisted at an odd angle and help to his damp chest. "Shizu-chan really is a sadist."

Shizuo shook his head. "You're worthless. I'll leave you the next chance I get."

"A pity."

"You can die without me."

"I can also live without you~"

Shizuo pushed his glasses up and gave him a bitter smile that read sarcasm. "Sure you will, _Izaya_ , because we've seen that work out."

The beep of their wristwatches spared Shizuo a response - 8:30.

In an instant, electricity sparked from their pellets.

"Mmf- _fuck_." Shizuo leaned against the wall, grinding his teeth and shutting his eyes.

At least the current hurt _less_ than Shizuo crushing his bone, but he couldn't suppress a hard flinch. He gazed at the other sidelong. "Shizu-chan. If you head to the next area now, you won't suffer the penalty. Here's your chance to leave. You won't have to kill me either; the delay would do that just fine, slowly and brutally." A breath. "You wanted that."

His chin dipped down and away, mouth quirked up at the corners.

"Perfect, ne?"

Shizuo stared wordlessly, for only a few seconds, before he turned around and went, without so much as saying another word.

Mocking laughter trickled after him.

* * *

 **[ 8:30 PM ]**

Ring Toss! Another easy one for me! (´・ω・`)

Winner:

The flowery script was starting to piss Shizuo off.

In fact, it felt like everything was currently pissing him off.

He took a deep breath and sighed. _It's fine._

He grabbed a ring and examined it.

 _It's gonna be fine. It's not like you left behind…_

He didn't let the thought finish, as he absent-mindedly bit his lip, uttering out a curse word.

 _I don't have anything to worry about. He deserves it._

Ten minutes had passed, enough for the delay to trigger twice more.

As he was aiming his shot, he felt his hands shake, if only a little.

 _It's fine._

But as he threw the ring, he realized he used _way_ too much force, and thus the bottles shattered on impact.

" _Ding ding ding. We have a winner._

 _Orihara Izaya._ "

Shizuo let out a quick yell of pain as electricity shot through him and stumbled, nearly falling over before he leaned against the nearby wall for support.

 _Deep breaths._

 _What the fuck is wrong with you, Izaya?_

 _Fuck._

Leaning off the wall with a grunt, a series of thoughts battered against Shizuo's mind, mainly concerning Izaya, and after a dozen or so seconds of standing there, the silence was broken by him making haste back to the pathway where the raven was.

He wasn't there.

However, his scent was still heavy in the air.

 _Where'd he fucking go?_ His mind raced as he went further back, eyes darting around every corner and crevice for Izaya.

Black hair poked out from beyond a dessert stand.

 _Why's he behind a fucking chocolate banana stand?_

Carmine eyes appeared over the top of the table. "Hello, stranger. How've you been?"

Shizuo groaned and hopped on over to the stand. "Are you fuckin' with me?"

Izaya leaned back down, pressing against the underside of the table. He twirled the skewer of his half-eaten banana, chocolate staining the sides of his face (most likely a result of being shocked while eating) … _I hate sweets._ "The only thing predictable about you is that you're always running after me."

"You saw this coming a mile away, didn't you? And you look like a fucking idiot, by the way."

He wiped his mouth on the other's shirt and tilted his head to the side, eyes both bemused and freckled with remnants of pain. "So I look like _you_ , then?"

Shizuo ignored the question and asked his own. "Could you hurry up?"

"How do you expect me to support myself on crutches with one hand?"

"Did you _crawl_ over here, or something?" Shizuo asked, slightly dumbfounded as he hopped around the stand.

 _How offensive._ "You make it sound like I'm a tarantula."

"I think a black widow spider is better, but you're still a flea."

"Yet _you're_ the one leeching off my back so annoyingly~?" He nibbled on the remaining stump of the banana before shoving it down his throat. Slowly.

"I'm not in the fucking _mood_ for your shit." Shizuo snarled as he roughly grabbed Izaya and turned him on his stomach, placing him on his shoulder, while grabbing the crutches.

The sudden movement had him coughing, and so he consented to actually chewing. "You're so rough, Shizu-chan. You made me choke. How mean."

"Stop complaining."

"Stop moving me around so inelegantly."

No response was given as Shizuo kept going, passing by the pathway where Shizuo broke Izaya's left wrist. There was a nice bloodstain on the ground.

 **[ 8:30 PM ]**

Ring Toss! Another easy one for me! (´・ω・`)

Winner: Winning by default? Hmph hmph. Don't underestimate me, Shizu~

Ring Toss! This one seems difficult for someone of my caliber, what a shame...

Winner: Tadaaa~! I let you have that one~

 **[ 8:45 PM ]**

Rope Climb! Spinny, spinny~

Winner:

Rope Climb! Start with bigger things before moving onto the smaller things, ne~?

Winner:

"This is fucking stupid."

"Hmm~ I lose by default, then?"

"You still have to try."

Izaya looked around at the mattresses laid out, as well as a several-meter-tall metal stanchions with four ropes dangling from the top, half of which had knots at precise intervals. Brass bells hung next to them. "How do you suppose I do that~?"

Shizuo stared at Izaya's broken wrist, and he felt his chest go ice cold.

"... You, uh… have a point."

His chin tilted up to the very top of the ropes. "Go ahead, then~ I'll watch you."

"Where do you want to be put down?"

An eye roll. "I doubt you care. But since you were _so_ kind as to ask, somewhere off the side of the ropes?"

After Shizuo headed over to the general destination where Izaya's voice lead him to, he went back to a knotted rope and tugged on it with a hand.

It snapped.

"Fuck," he sighed, irritation apparent in his voice. "Tch. I overdid it."

"Hmm~? I suppose they're not as secure as they're supposed to be. You better be careful." The final statement sounded more like a taunt than genuine concern.

Shizuo rolled his eyes, and grabbed onto another knotted rope, giving it the _tiniest_ tug.

There was the soft whistle of the fibers starting to fray, yet it held.

"Do I have to lift myself by the fuckin' ring finger and thumb?" He groaned. _Annoying._

He _ever-so-slightly_ pinched the rope with said fingers, doing the same with his other hand.

Izaya applauded with his right hand against his forearm. "Shizu-chan is so rough at times yet so disgustingly gentle~ I don't know what to expect."

"Would you cut it out? That's creepy as fuck, flea. _You're_ fucking creepy."

"And _you're_ slow. Even with a broken wrist and amputated leg, I would be faster than you. Hurry up now~ Don't keep your date waiting."

Shizuo grumbled something incomprehensible, most likely something along the lines of " _Fucking pest._ "

As gently as someone with inhuman strength could, he made his first climbing motion.

The rope seemed to be stable enough. _Don't you snap on me._

As if crawling through no man's land, he made his movements inch by inch, being careful not to tear the rope in two.

Izaya began to shift closer to the base of the rope, looking up at Shizuo from this perspective. "What a sight to see."

Izaya's commentary was _very_ appreciated.

"Shut the fuck up," Shizuo growled through gritted teeth; the concentration needed was making him sweat at this point.

Izaya grasped the rope with his right hand and pulled. Nothing, though the rope did sway in response.

Fortunately for Shizuo, he was too busy focusing to notice the shift, and by now, he was near the top.

The informant's mouth was quirked into a smile. "All you have to do is ring the bell~" _I doubt this fall would hurt him, but..._

 _Just two more knots._ The rope protested against Shizuo trying to climb it, and even with all the carefulness someone like him can muster, the rope _was_ going to start tearing if he didn't hurry up.

 _One more._

Izaya yanked hard and scrambled back, just as the rope severed from its support.

 _What's-_ Not a femtosecond passed after that as he figured out what happened.

"IZAYAAA!" He yelled out in anger, as he flew from the top to the bottom, violently slamming into the ground and forming a mini-crater on impact.

"Fucking flea." He stared at Izaya, who was flicking specks of dirt off himself nonchalantly.

"Suppose you have to try again~?"

"Could you sit down and _not_ do anything?" Shizuo retorted, as he got up and dusted off the dirt on his back.

"How can I help it when you are offering me such a _nice_ view?"

"Don't look at my ass when I climb the rope, eh?!"

"When you put it like that~" He snickered. Izaya held up both his hands in what seemed to be surrender, a jarring discrepancy against his Cheshire cat smile. His wrist was swollen a livid blue. "Fine~ ' _I will obey your every command, Shizuo-sama._ '"

"What the hell are you going on about?" Shizuo asked annoyedly, hopping over to the next rope.

Izaya placed a hand against his chest, fingers fanned out over his collarbone. "Don't tell me your heart skipped a beat? 'Shizu-chan' _does_ have a nicer ring to it, though."

"Could you just shut-" He sighed and pinched his nose, closing his eyes. "Whatever." He opened them as he reached the next rope and clutched it again.

The informant consented to resting his cheek in his hand, raising his eyebrows at the other. "Unless you want to fall again, why don't you simply jump up and ring the bell?"

Shizuo looked up at the top, and the rope in his grip snapped.

He grumbled out a, "This is so fucking stupid…" as he took a few hops back and propelled himself onto the top, hanging on to the support and shortly afterwards ringing the bell.

Almost instantly, Izaya's body jolted from an electric shock, and he bit down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood to keep from crying out. His gaze shot down to mask the pain. His breath hitched, white-knuckled fingers tightening over his shoulder, before all at once, he relaxed. "Time to move on then~"

Shizuo's expression softened from annoyance to quiet guilt, before quickly fading away into neutrality. He jumped off the side and landed, scattering dirt everywhere - but at least he didn't get any on himself and Izaya, wordlessly continuing onwards.

* * *

 **[ 8:45 PM ]**

Rope Climb! Spinny, spinny~

Winner: Shizu-chan has an unfair advantage! Though … I will let this slide because Shizu-chan has a _very_ nice ass (｡・/ε/・｡)

Rope Climb! Start with bigger things before moving onto the smaller things, ne~?

Winner: Getting to the top is one of the many things I excel at~

 **[ 9:00 PM ]**

Whack-a-Mole! It's not Whack-a-Flea, Shizu-chan~ No getting angry ヽ(*≧л≦)ﾉ

Winner: Meanie! o(；△；)o You're not allowed to break it, you know.

Whack-a-Mole! Izaya~kun should hone his reaction time, you never know when you'd need it.

Winner: Ah, I was thinking you would put up more of a fight!

 **[ 9:15 PM ]**

Horse Race! I call dibs on the red one!

Winner: Hehe~ I win!

Horse Race! I call dibs on the blue one!

Winner: Aww...

 **[ 9:30 PM ]**

Basketball! I will be your cheerleader ҉*\\( 'ω' )/*҉

Winner: My presence motivated you, ne~? Shizu-chan looked really cool winning (⺣◡⺣) *

Basketball! Mmh, I don't really have much to say. Good luck, Izaya~kun.

Winner: You can't be lucky _every_ day~

Let's just say Izaya didn't expect the other to decimate the whack-a-mole machine and _win_ because it counted as scoring infinite points, nor did he expect the brute to score in basketball after Izaya shot several one-handed before deflating the balls with his knife.

He at least made up for the two losses with winning the horse race after Shizuo broke the button.

"Push, _Shizu-chan~ Not pull. Perhaps you would realize that in due time."_

" _Please shut the fuck up. With cherry on top."_

Still, if he took one more loss penalty to his body, he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle the pain and remain conscious.

And besides, he _really_ wanted to win.

They each had five points, and all that was left was the eleventh event, which would be revealed in a couple of minutes.

 **[ 9:45 PM ]**

Hidden! No peeking, Shizu-chan, nyaa! (^=˃ᆺ˂)

Hidden! I don't guarantee anything, but a _flea~_ like you might figure it out.

"Shizu-chan~ What do you think it's going to be?"

"Dunno. Could be anything."

The pair were sitting next to each other on a bench, a sizable amount of space stretching between them. Izaya had a plastic bowl of takoyaki from the vendor stand across from them. Izaya idly stabbed the spheres with his toothpick. "Anything _big_. Otherwise, they wouldn't keep it hidden." He twirled it around, eyeing it as if with keen interest. "We're tied now. Whoever wins this gets the special prize~"

He pointed the toothpick at Shizuo, the takoyaki sagging from it. "Do you want it?'

"Uh… not hungry, thanks."

"I wasn't offering." An eyeroll. "I meant the prize, brute."

Shizuo shrugged. "Don't know."

He bit into the food. "Think then, to the best of your protozoan ability. We have three minutes to kill."

"Why the hell are you even asking me? Don't you want to win?"

Izaya grinned, taking his time to chew and swallow.

"These three minutes feel endless. Especially with _you,_ flea."

"The feeling is mutual~" He plucked up a takoyaki and lobbed the ball at Shizuo, hitting him in the side of his head. "To make the experience as bearable as possible," he explained, popping another one into his mouth.

Shizuo seethed, barely keeping his fists from punching Izaya's face. "Knock it off."

"Give me a reason to."

"You're giving me more of a reason to leave you with every second that passes, flea."

"And we saw how well _that_ worked last time." A beep from their watches. "Oh~ It updated."

 **[ 9:45 PM ]**

Hidden! No peeking, Shizu-chan, nyaa! (^=˃ᆺ˂)

{SPECIAL! Kissing Booth (*^3(＃∀＃) First to lean in and kiss wins! Feel free to touch me, Shizzy!

BONUS! This counts as two losses!}

Hidden! I don't guarantee anything, but a _flea~_ like you might figure it out.

{SPECIAL! Kissing Booth! A-ha-ha, I was waiting for this for such a long time~! I'll let you cross the line this time, Izaya~kun. But don't go _too_ far~

BONUS! This counts as two losses!}

Izaya's stomach turned. "Well."

Shizuo looked down at the floor. "This is the worst day of my life."

Swallowing the bile in his throat, he turned to the other with a small grin. "Is kissing me going to be _that_ bad~?"

Shizuo turned his head to stare at Izaya. "Take a guess."

"I figured you'd be angry, but that doesn't seem to be the case." A pause for effect. "Don't tell me-"

"Off the bench." Shizuo stood up.

"Don't I get a pretty please?" Izaya retorted, stubbornly crossing his arms.

"You'll get a pretty punch in the fucking face if you don't get off." He cracked his knuckles.

His expression soured slightly, but he silently extended his arm out.

"Hurry _up_ , flea."

"Why don't you snap the other wrist first~?" Izaya's voice lilted sweetly, despite the sharpness of his grin.

The blond bared his teeth and cocked his arm back. "I _will_ if you don't _listen_. This is a _compromise_ or I'd have already broken it."

A one-shouldered shrug. "How about you evolve that pitifully small protozoan brain of yours into something more useful, ne~?" He dropped his arm. "You know, I have a better idea."

Shizuo was on the verge of his limit and bumped the underside of the bench, denting and splintering the wood. "Fuck that, I'm not hearing _any_ of your ideas today."

Mildly disconcerted by the impending danger, he maintained his stance. "I have pretty great ideas; you should give me credit. All _you've_ accomplished is-"

The blond's foot shot upwards in a kick, the force sending the bench into the air as he extended an arm to catch the raven.

Izaya barely had time for a startled intake of breath before the world tipped around, and he found his body shifting on instinct to brace for impact with his broken wrist hugged to his chest.

Another kick that shot the bench into the sky like the world's most unconventional football, before the infobroker felt an arm smoothly wrap around his stomach. He inhaled sharply, letting out a gasp of " _Geez._ "

"We're going," Shizuo stated, feeling decently calmer now.

"Ah, I always forget." Izaya's body was tense, as though he was either miffed or simply uncomfortable. "Without the cigarettes, Shizu-chan resorts to throwing things and hurting people to satiate his temper."

"You're a person?" was the other's sarcastic retort.

"You're one to talk~" He retorted. "Monster, monster, monster, monster. I've said it enough that even _you_ have gotten it through your thick-headed skull."

Shizuo huffed in quickly returning anger. "Thanks for writing 'Monster' on my forehead back then, by the way. Refreshed my memory real quick."

"Always a pleasure to mark my property."

Turns out, the stall was all decked out in paper hearts, romantic candlelight, and a turntable from which violin music emanated.

 _What purpose do they have for doing this? The gifts, the taunts … maybe I shouldn't have played along with it._

 _It_ does _seem that is what they expected me to do. What happened at the lake as well … must have played a part in having this event._

 _Hmph._

That brings Izaya to the real question. In a mixture of interest and dread, he asked, "Is Shizu-chan really going to do it~?"

The other responded with a displeasing taste in his mouth. "I think I'd rather take the shock than... Tch."

"You can put me down now."

Shizuo did just that.

Izaya shifted to the other side of the booth, leaning across the table on his elbows to look up at the other. "How do you want to go about this?" He had the most curious expression on his face, eyelids lowered and half-lidded.

"On the cheek. Once. _Don't_ pull any shit." Shizuo had really, really, _really_ hoped that it would work.

"Hmm? I don't think that would count." He rapped his knuckles idly. "We could try, though it's not going to work unless you lean down, Shizu-chan."

"This really _is_ the worst day of my life." Shizuo consented, tilted his face to the side, and closed his eyes, a frown replacing his neutral expression.

"I'm flattered. Giving me the win? Though I don't think you'd kiss _me_ anyway."

Izaya's voice was _uncomfortably_ closer now.

"I'd rather die."

He hummed softly, under his breath, to the tune of the music. _On different circumstances, I wouldn't have an opportunity to see Shizu-chan_ this _close._

 _It's exciting._

In one, swift move, he had slipped out the knife and flicked it across the other's cheek in a stinging trail of hot blood.

"That _wasn't_ a fucking kiss," he growled, opening his eyes.

Izaya held the cool flat of the blade to the cut, his own pulse racing. "Who would have thought that you'd be able to tell the difference?"

" _Why_ are you delaying this?"

"What?" he drawled. "You think I want to kiss you?"

"You think _I_ want to kiss you?"

The tip of the knife settled below Shizuo's chin, against his Adam's apple. "Why else would you be so insistent?"

"Dig that knife in and see where it gets you, flea." He stared at the other with a challenge.

The pressure increased, a droplet of blood skittering down the other's throat. "Oh, how I want to shove it in."

"Coward."

"Haven't you heard of playing with your prey first?"

"You're _never_ going to have the guts to kill me," he snarled.

Izaya slid the knife back, and perhaps it was the slight shift in his expression or the glint of metal that had Shizuo capturing Izaya's wrist before the knife's point could impale his eye.

" _Don't_ ," the blond took a shaky breath. " _Make me ram this thing into your skull._ "

His hand shook underneath the vice grip, yet his fingers didn't loosen. "You called my 'bluff,'" he whispered lowly, leaning closer.

His hold tightened as Shizuo plucked the knife out of the other's hand, crushing it into dust.

Izaya blinked slowly as he processed the unpredicted action. His wrist hung limp now, noticeable pain permeating up his arm. "Why?"

"Here's your _kiss_ ," the other bitterly said, as he reeled back a fist and punched Izaya in the face, with extremely reduced strength down to one of a normal person. As if it was _intentional._

A grunt as his neck, spurred by Shizuo's attack, snapped to the side, blood filling his mouth. He was still, before a ghost of a smile graced his features. "And there's my answer."

"If you keep pushing me like this, you'll cross that line you always wanted to cross."

An exhale, before Izaya lightly touched his fingertips to Shizuo's jaw. "Can't help it." His words brimmed with a quiet loathing yet sounded as tender as a sweet nothing.

"Why the hell are you so quiet now, hah?" He let go of the other's hand. "Fuckin' crazy."

"That the best you can come up with?" Without Shizuo restraining him, he fanned his fingers over the other's cheek. _Watch and see. I'll pull the rug from underneath you right when you least expect it._

Shizuo sighed in annoyance and ran a hand through his hair, staring at Izaya from under his arm before dropping it and leaning forwards. "Just kiss me already," he spoke, and the raven could note that he was fed up with all this delaying - he simply wanted to get it over with, even if it resulted in excruciating pain.

Izaya pursed his lips. This task created such a jolting discrepancy with what he was used to, with knives and fists exchanged for intimate physical contact of all things. Unpredictable. It didn't feel safe, despite the assurance that Shizuo would be well and out of order before he'd get a chance to breath in edgewise. "What if I tell you this means something?"

The blond met the other's narrowed gaze, and his frown deepened. "I don't want to know."

"Nothing," he whispered, close enough now for his breath to be felt. "It means nothing." With that, Izaya closed the distance, lips soft, undemanding, so unlike him.

However, the pressure on Shizuo's cheek grew, focused on five points, raking down the length of his face.

 _I hate you more than anyone else, flea. More than anything in the world._

A split-second later, the warmth receded, along with an obligatory "Chu~" from Izaya.

The 'good' news was Izaya didn't get shocked.

The bad news was that Shizuo's loss counted at the _same time_.

So when a massive jolt of electricity ran through him, he reeled back and _screamed_ in agony, unable to do anything but twitch as his body was ran through.

He stumbled back, the bench knocked to the ground, and he let out a weak yell as his legs started to give out beneath him. From his foggy, disjointed perspective, he could see Izaya's pointed smirk, bloodied nails, tight eyes, slight tint to his pallor, before he landed on the ground face-first, and his vision - along with all other senses - dissolved into darkness.

" _Ding ding ding. Orihara Izaya is the winner. Prepare for transport."_

 **[ 10:00 PM ]**

Date ends! (ˊ̥̥̥̥̥ ³ ˋ̥̥̥̥̥)

It's over already?! Ah...


	13. Congruence, And Inequalities

Aaaaaah we're both sorry for the delay and all that! We had to rewrite the first half of this chapter and build the prologue from the ground up, so please forgive us. Please?

* * *

 **Congruence, And Inequalities.**

Darkness enveloped the confines of his mind, and in unconsciousness he did not dream - his thoughts wandered to spaces of nothingness as his body lay motionless, before finally rebooting itself up and ending its sleep cycle.

A soft groan emitted from the blond as he felt his functions slowly return to him, along with memories of what happened before flooding his brain. His vision slowly crept back, and with a long draw of breath, opened his eyes.

He was located in a completely unfamiliar place; sterile white walls and a linoleum floor, along with chains locking his arms and legs tightly. Speakers and cameras stood out like sore thumbs compared to the hospital-like atmosphere of the room, and beyond it all, in front of him, was a thick sheet of glass that mirrored into the room opposite to him.

What he saw made him made his gag reflex act up, but he suppressed it just in time.

From the center of the ceiling hung a hook, with a full length of chain running from the pulley in the corner to the shackles holding one Orihara Izaya up by his forearms. He was stripped of his clothes, leaving expanses of pale skin mottled by superficial bruises and scrapes, as well as the not-so-superficial red tendrils formed by electric shocks that radiated downward from his palm, branching out to his bandaged chest. By the looks of it, he had been cleaned, the gauze changed and his wrist enclosed in a cast.

There was one more thing that made Shizuo run a hand through his hair and throat forcibly close up.

A metallic prosthesis was fused to the stump of Izaya's leg.

The informant's chin had dipped down to his chest, expression concealed behind a fringe of dark hair, bare feet trailing on the ground. There was a noticeable sheen of sweat to his pallor, a distinct tautness to his jaw.

"Fuck," he muttered and moments later felt stinging in his neck. He reached his hand to touch it and felt the cool white surface of a compress covering where the pellet had been buried deep.

"Where are we?" He huffed, rubbing his eyes. "Wake the fuck up, flea." A few seconds of silence passed, and the look on his face grew irritated. "Come on, Izaya." He pulled the chain on his left arm and felt its bondage restrain him. _It's this fuckin' thing again, isn't it?_ "Flea," he growled out again. "Wake _up_."

A few moments later, as if in response, Izaya's head shot up, chest heaving. His eyes were wild and glazed over, expression completely rattled, yet a couple slow blinks later, he was laughing quietly to himself. His chains clinked as he shifted his arms.

"What the fuck is so funny?" His impatience was slowly getting the better of him, as he instinctively kept pulling on the unbreakable chains, to no effect. Seeing Izaya recompose himself so quickly in a situation like this infused the blond with some sort of anger, but he didn't know why he should care. He could pinpoint some of it to the laughter, however.

Izaya was looking in Shizuo's direction, but it didn't seem like he was _seeing_ Shizuo, if the way his giggling grew louder and lack of snappy comeback was any indication.

"God, could you just shut the _fuck_ up for one moment?!" He balled his hands into fists and repeated the usual mantra in his head; _Killkillkillkillkillkill_ , while the back of his mind was assembling the puzzle pieces on why he wasn't making any counter-commentary.

Izaya's gaze rerouted to the cameras in his half of the room, the corner of his lips quirking up into a half-smile. " _Ah, to think I've fallen this far. Going so far to undress me as to prove a point, ne?"_ His voice echoed through speakers crisply, loud enough that every grating rasp in his throat could be heard.

Shizuo's anger calmed down to the point where his head was completely clear, and he finally figured out that they were separated from each other. But the fact that he could hear him, and the other could not - it instilled a sense of confusion into him.

The raven couldn't conceal how he gritted his teeth as he pulled his feet up from underneath him - first the one made of flesh, then the one made of metal - and settled them on the floor. His legs wobbled from imbalance, and with a sigh, he allowed himself to hang limp from the chains once more. " _I'm assuming you want a thank-you?"_

Shizuo tilted his head in even more confusion before quickly realizing what the other meant. He didn't exactly like his kidnappers - they were getting close to having him hate them as much as he hated Izaya.

Abruptly, a door swung open, Izaya's head snapping to the source… and in walked a man dressed in a bartender suit, so similar to Shizuo right down to the browning roots of his bleached hair and the cheap plastic glasses perched neatly on his nose.

" _What are you supposed to be?"_ The raven questioned, lifting an eyebrow. " _My so called 'special treatment?' Knocking me out wasn't very nice, you know."_

Shizuo's back made contact with the wall as he leaned back with a perplexed and slightly irked expression on his face, as he eyed the doppelganger up and down in silence. His mind, however, was not very silent.

The man gave Izaya an appreciative once-over, starting from the bottom and working his way up, pausing at whatever met his fancy before finally settling on Izaya's lips curling into distaste. " _You're not so bad."_ Even his voice was similar to Shizuo's - a gruff baritone.

" _Yuck. If this is what I get for kissing Shizu-chan, I would have taken the loss."_ Izaya motioned to stand on his feet again, watching the other through narrowed eyes as he approached him.

 _What are they going to do?_ He brooded in thought, as he swallowed back more bubbling anger. _This is so fucking stupid._

"' _Shizu-chan?' The one that messed you up?"_ The wannabe stopped in front of the other, crossing his arms with a smirk.

Izaya remained unruffled. " _You can't blame him for his animalistic tendencies. And besides, I prod the beast. It's expected."_

 _Go-_ "Fuck yourself, Izaya." The words accidentally rolled out of his mouth with grit teeth, and they sounded harsher than expected.

The man placed a hand on Izaya's waist. " _If your appearance hadn't been reduced to shit, then I would have had more fun with this."_ His fingers closed over the gauze. " _At least you're thin enough to pass as a girl."_

Izaya's eyebrows lifted momentarily in understanding, and he angled his hips away. " _Ah, so_ you're _the repulsive bottom-feeders of the social hierarchy. I'm honored, but I politely decline your offer for sex. I don't know where you've been, you know."_

" _I wasn't offering, pal. No refunds."_

Shizuo suddenly leaned forward and stared at the man in disgust. _What is_ that _supposed to mean, eh?_

Izaya bit his lip. " _Don't tell me your life is on the line?"_

The doppelganger's expression fell, and he rolled his eyes. " _Don't make this harder than it needs to be. All I need to do is dress like someone I don't know, fuck you, and leave. I'm not bad either."_

" _Uh-huh,"_ Izaya stated blandly, as the man held Izaya's chin between a thumb and forefinger to keep him in place. He titled the raven's head to the side and leaned down to press his lips to his neck and suck.

 _God, that's disgusting._ The blond felt bile creep up the back of his neck, before he forced it down with an unsavory swallow.

Izaya remained disconcertingly silent as the man shifted from one point to the next, leaving livid red marks in his wake, before the raven finally stated. " _You know that non-consensual sex qualifies as rape, ne?"_

" _So what?"_

 _This guy…_ Shizuo snarled in vehement disgust. _This bastard._

That seemed to be enough for Izaya to come to a resolution.

One that was to lean in, close his eyes, and kiss the other.

 _I can't watch this._ He looked down and blocked out the view with a hand, as he bit down on nausea. _What the fuck is wrong with you, flea?_

The man made a muffled sound of surprise before hoisting Izaya up by his thighs to give the other a better grip. A low, muffled moan came from one or the other - it was impossible to tell from the speakers.

However, as the fake Shizuo slid his hands further up, Izaya had slowly used the extra height he had gained by being supported on the other's waist to loop his arms, connected by a foot of chain, over the man's shoulders. His eyes opened, half-lidded and jarringly dark.

 _This is so wrong, this is so wrong_ , Shizuo repeated in his head, as he dare not to look up to see whatever sort of hell was going on in the other room. The voices coming from the speakers were already bad enough.

An unexpected choking noise made Shizuo jolt as he looked up in shock.

Izaya had locked his arms over one another, pressing the chain connecting them over the look-alike's neck. His legs had tightened over the other's waist, holding him in place, pressing him back with the force of the kiss.

The man tried to shove the raven off, but a dissonant click had sent the pulley whirring into motion, releasing Izaya and sending the two sprawling ono the floor, the informant on top of the other. This only gave him better traction, and Izaya's lips pulled back into a smirk as dampened screaming could be heard.

The blond could only stare in horror as his eyes widened in shock.

Gradually, the struggling ceased, and Izaya held on for much longer than necessary, until he could no longer hear any quiet breath from the other. He straightened, unlooping himself and wiping away stray strings of saliva with the back of his hand.

Izaya smiled – a cruel, cold smile dripping with malice.

"There's something _wrong_ ," Shizuo emphasized, as he violently pulled the chains on his arms towards the other. "With you. Fucking _freak_."

" _Looks like you had lucked out."_ His hand held the other's chin gently, almost mockingly so, the same way the wannabe had done for him. " _It seems dressing up like the monster was enough for you to switch sides, it not temporarily. I will not let anyone defile me."_

"I'll cave your fucking SKULL IN, FLEA!" The other yelled out in anger while he felt his hands tremble with such similar rage.

His fingers traced the livid marks left by the chainlinks. " _A pity, but this was the only way to get you to stop. Though…"_ For a fleeting moment, Izaya's expression bordered manic. " _What a wonderful sight to see. Shizu-chan's face, dead."_

Shizuo slammed his fist into the wall in response, as he barked out, "FUCK YOU, IZAYA! I'LL CRACK _YOUR_ HEAD ON THE FLOOR! SCUMBAG!" His rage stemmed not from the simple fact that he killed his aggressor - he deserved it, in his mind. - But it was in _how_ he did it, and his feelings in doing so. It was quite obvious, in the blond's eyes, that Izaya took immense pleasure and satisfaction in murdering his doppelganger.

Izaya drew one leg off the body, then the other, so that he was lying flat on his back. He draped an arm over his face, shook once involuntarily, before releasing a long, drawn-out sigh.

" _How ungrateful. We send you a playmate, and you kill him."_ It was a different voice from the one Shizuo had heard, this one distorted and pitched clearly to maintain ambiguity.

The informant sat up, crossing his legs underneath one another, fingers trailing along the prosthesis. " _You sent me a taunt, and I responded."_

" _And yet you are feeling guilty, Orihara-san?"_

His visage was unreadable. " _Guilty? Me? Not at all, yet killing a human is such a waste. You forced my hand."_

Shizuo dug his head into his knees as he raised them up and stared in silent anger at the raven, while his mind continued to brood about what to think; not anything in particular, but simply _think_.

" _Didn't Shizu-chan say that your voice was deep? Warping it is enough giveaway that I know you."_ A fluid shrug. " _Not necessarily personally, hmm?"_

" _No need to run your mouth, Orihara-san. I'm here for a little conversation."_

" _Oh?"_

" _A question for you. What goes on four legs at dawn, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"_

" _How boring to use the Sphinx's riddle."_ A pause, as Izaya idly rubbed his neck, spotted with hickeys. " _I'll indulge you. It's humans - they crawl as a baby, walk as an adult, and use a cane in old age. Except Shizu-chan cut me down to one, so I fall underneath none of the categories, ne?"_

The blond bit his lip and suppressed a swear word. "I'll cut you down to _zero_ if you keep this up," he bitterly murmured.

" _And what do you believe that makes you?"_

A tilt of his head, a ghost of a smile. " _Between me and Shizu-chan, we all know who the monster is, and he's not in this room."_

"Aren't _you_ fucking funny?" The other sarcastically asked.

The voice came directly into Shizuo's room this time. "Hilarious, Heiwajima-san."

"Yeah, it's like watching a stand-up with a leg missing." He looked up at the speakers before looking back down, and muttering out, "Damn louse…"

Izaya had dubiously lifted an eyebrow at the speaker's from his captor's apparent lack of response.

"It must be disorienting to see an imitation of yourself killed by Orihara-san, no?"

"A _bit_ ," he growled under drawn out breath. "Just a little fuckin' bit, if I'm honest."

"Didn't you know that is the kind of person he is?"

"Nooooo _shit_ , pal. But this is reaching a new level."

"Then we are in agreement. He is egotistic, ruthless, selfish. To him, the only person that matters is himself, and he doesn't care how many people he ruins to satisfy his hedonistic needs, nor does he care how many people he has to step over to reach his goals. Ironically enough, the person who wants him dead the most is, by now, is the only reason he's still alive. He doesn't deserve your pity. He is not worth of your guilty conscious." The kidnapper paused, as if tasting his next words. "What do you say, Heiwajima-san?"

"I'll beat the fucking flea to an inch of his life, that's what I fucking say." He glared at the man in question, who had focused on placing his feet underneath him, with daggers in his eyes.

"Why don't I-" The door on Izaya's side clicked open. "-Help you?"

The raven had turned just in time to watch two burly men burst into the room, masked in a similar fashion as the torturer from before. " _More friends?"_ he questioned, backing away in concealed perturbation. The step was clumsy, more of a stumble, but he managed to catch himself before he could fall. Izaya pulled his hands to his chest, chains sprawling across the room like metallic snakes shifting.

"What the fuck is _this_?" His fingers dug into the palm of his hand. "Let me beat the flea within an inch of his life with my _own_ hands. Fuck no, I'm not accepting your help."

"No need to be so stubborn. Why not keep your hands free of blood?" As he spoke, one man had kicked the limp body against the glass, blood starbursting and cracks spider-webbing upon impact.

Izaya tensed. " _That's not very nice-_ " He ducked the fist flying towards him, backing to the side to keep from losing balance. It seemed he had gotten a bit used to the prosthetic leg, though as he moved, there was a distinct disjointedness. There was no chance that he would last.

"Leave him _ALONE_ ," he yelled out. "He's _MINE_! I'll stain a fuckin' _GALLON_ of blood on my hands, let the fucking flea GO!" He pulled his hardest on the chains that bound him, but as always, it didn't work out.

A scuffle ensued, yet it was clear Izaya didn't have the upper-hand against two men larger than himself in a space too small for him to dodge effectively. He was lifted up and slammed into the wall, knife held to his throat, and like puppets, the assailants froze.

The informant laughed quietly, betraying hints of nervousness. " _We were getting along so well, fellas. Why don't we work this out?"_

"Let him go?" The kidnapper questioned bemusedly, as blood beaded down from Izaya's throat where metal met flesh. "All it takes is one word to end him right here."

"What do you think my answer is?" A pause, as if to let the other reply. "The answer is a _no_."

"Hm." Instantaneously, the men let Izaya go, and he caught himself against the wall before he could slump to the ground. He clutched his throat as he quietly watched the men dragged the body out the room and shut the door behind him, deadbolt clicking.

" _Ahaha, what was that about?"_ The raven questioned, expression smoothing over the trepidation. " _A scare?"_

" _A test,"_ came the reply. " _One that passed."_

"Passed?" The other scoffed. "Yeah, if you can call it that."

" _And what are you testing?"_

He didn't miss a beat. " _Whether you are still capable of fear."_

Izaya blinked slowly, pulling his arms to his chest. " _Well, honestly, this wasn't the best prize._

A laugh from their captor. " _What? Would you have preferred it to be the real Heiwajima-san?"_

"You'd fuckin' _wish_ , don't you, flea?" Shizuo huffed as he rubbed his face with his hand in an effort to recompose himself.

" _How crude and disgusting of you to suggest such a thing."_

" _I'm not wrong, am I? I know unrequited love when I see it."_

Shizuo couldn't suppress a noise of disgust.

There was a shift in his eyes as Izaya neatly filed this piece of information away. He moved to sit by the wall, knee folded up with his elbow resting against it. " _Then you should get your eyes checked."_

 _"What about what happened at the lake and the festival, hmm? You seemed to be quite taken by him. Oh, I hope you didn't mind my meddling."_

 _Figured they'd have some cameras there_ , Shizuo thought.

Izaya stiffened for a fleeting moment, expression unreadable. A grin split his face, as if this was something he had anticipated, something he knew how to answer. _"It's a purely physical … fascination as a result of unfortunate circumstances. All I have to do is sleep with the brute to get it out of my system."_

Shizuo's eyes narrowed, and his expression soured. _What the fuck are you even talking about?_ He sighed. ' _My monster.' Like hell it's just 'physical'._

" _Ah, but you said it before, Orihara-san. He'd never consent to that."_

" _You're not wrong, but I have my ways. If I can gain the personal attention of a drug lord, then I can trick Shizu-chan into liking me."_ A small huff of laughter. " _Or rather, that I've 'changed.'"_

Shizuo spat on the floor in anger. " _Fuck_ you, Izaya."

" _I know well enough by now about what he doesn't like. It's just that I've never made the effort to gain his trust._ "

A pause as the man considered his words. " _Is this your reaction to being rejected by Heiwajima-san on sight?"_

"I can't fucking believe this," the other growled out.

" _Are you roleplaying as a therapist? You're almost as terrible as Shinra."_

" _You're dodging the question, Orihara-san."_

 _Dodges questions like he dodges vending machines,_ Shizuo thought, humoring himself to alleviate some of the anger.

" _What~?"_ His face twisted into a sneer. " _You expect me to pour my heart out?"_

" _Like you have a heart."_

 _You're not any better, pal. Well… not that much better._

Izaya lifted a brow, and the other continued. " _That's not entirely true, is it? It's more that your heart is so small and fragile that you keep it under lock and key. Fill it up with real love, and it would break."_

Shizuo huffed in annoyance and leaned back against the wall, deciding he would be quiet. The vow of silence was probably not going to last for a very long time.

The informant closed his eyes, tipping his head back towards the ceiling. " _Oh, I see what you're trying to accomplish with pitting Shizu-chan here with me."_

Shizuo quirked his head. "Huh?"

" _And what would that be, Orihara-san?"_

Izaya lifted his hand up, light filtering from in between his fingers. " _You think love and hate are two sides of the same coin- two loops of the infinity I spoke of before. With all these so-called tests, you're trying to push just hard enough for the lines to blur and the switch to trigger."_

He curled his fingers into a fist. " _The only problem is that you oversimplified my relationship with Shizu-chan. It isn't_ just _clear-cut hatred."_

Shizuo's lips twitched. _Then how about you fuckin' lecture me._

" _I can't help but bring out the worst in Shizu-chan, and he can't help but be as annoyingly unpredictable as ever. In that, I wouldn't say he hates me - rather, he hates my effect on him. He's perfectly content with me just keeping quiet."_

Shizuo snarled, "Yeah, well, if I didn't hate you before; I _really_ fuckin' do now."

" _And that is impossible. As for myself, I_ hate _him. Not in the way a human hates another, but in the way a human hates a monster; it's natural. There is no flipside to it. What I plan on doing is to get him to return the feeling so that he will finally fight me with murderous intent - the most passionate of responses he can offer me."_ A pause, followed by a low, devious purr. " _As well as revenge, of course. This, with your help, I will soon accomplish."_

"Guess you're ahead of schedule, fleabag."

The kidnapper started to laugh involuntarily at Shizuo's comment, much to Izaya's bafflement. " _Well, why don't you remind me of what you've done?"_

" _Hmm? For one thing, I joined in on the little joke of yours. Shizu-chan really is much easier to tease when I suggest anything sexual. It really makes me want to throw up."_

The blond stayed quiet.

" _In light of today's revelation, it's entertaining to see you think of my statements as more than just offhand comments."_

The kidnapper was just as silent.

" _What, don't tell me I satisfy your guilty pleasures? You must be lonely."_

A small intake of breath. " _As much as I'd like to entertain you, here's your next challenge. Solitary confinement. Let's see how long you last."_

Izaya raised both his brows, unimpressed.

"Guess I have to participate, huh?"

The captor's voice now resounded in Shizuo's room. "Indeed. Orihara-san doesn't seem too suspicious of you listening in on that, or rather, I doubt he cares. At any rate, I'm offering you an exclusive view on Shinjiku's informant when left to himself."

Shizuo huffed. "Not like I can hate him much more after this."

"Hmm…" The hum was _almost_ patronizing, like he was laughing at a joke Shizuo didn't get.

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "Either get on with it or mute your fuckin' microphone."

"Orihara-san isn't completely right about a lot of things."

"Thanks for the tip," he responded, in toxic amounts of sarcasm.

With that, the speakers clicked off, drowning the pair in silence.


	14. Hello, I'm Orihara Izaya

**Hello, I'm Orihara Izaya.**

"Day one," Izaya intoned aloud, accompanied by a jangle of the chains enclosing his wrists.

"We're in for a long fucking ride, aren't we?" The other huffed in restrained anger.

 _This is going to get irritating._ The raven balanced between his prosthetic and leg and stumbled forward a couple steps, heading towards the pulley where the length of chain tapered off. He crouched down, running his hands along the niches. Nothing of interest.

Izaya directed his attention to the recent attachment to his leg. There wasn't even a skin graft, so it was incredibly jarring to see metal glinting from where his foot must have been. He could not keep his expression from sagging ever-so-slightly as he inspected it.

 _Never expected people to strap on a metal leg like that so easy. Creepy shit…_ Shizuo thought, as he uncomfortable shifted in his position.

Izaya's chipped, blunt nails caught on a panel on the underside of the foot, and he popped it out of place.

Unlike the last time where they had hidden a weapon in plain sight, this time, he found himself shimmying out a set of lockpicks. With an inward sigh, he placed the tension wrench in between his teeth and the pick in the other, shaking it around until his shackles popped open with a satisfying click.

 _And they don't give_ me, he emphasized with the pull of a chain, _one_. _Bastards._

Kicking the chains away, the raven ran a hand through his hair and down his face before glancing back at the mirror, where the blood of his victim had dried into crusty, rustic patches. A flare of white-hot fire tore down his throat, combatting against the bile that rose up to meet him.

 _I killed a human._

His hand curled into a fist and loosened almost as quickly as it had formed, and he inwardly commended himself for not losing to a fit of impulsivity. "Ah, I've really been around Shizu-chan for too long…"

"Hah? You starting to gain some empathy, flea? Tch." The blond kicked a foot into empty air. "Fuck you, you know that?"

Using the pick, he made a small notch into the glass to mark the day. There was no telling how long this would last, as so, he alternated his vision between the toilet in the corner of the room and the cameras.

A small _ding_ made him straighten, as small slats opened and two tray were pushed in, one from the bottom of the door in Izaya's room, the other by Shizuo's side. It was the same, amorphous blob from before, as well as a tin cup of water, and Izaya's mouth curled up in distaste as he approached it.

The other was reciprocated the food, and he didn't hesitate in wrapping his fingers around the distasteful gelatinous surface before feeling a burst of heat shoot through his skin, pain receptors reactivating themselves as he snapped his hand back and bit back a yell. "How hot is this food?!" He growled out.

The informant was smarter. As his hand reached down to rip of a piece, he paused, sensing. A considerable amount of heat radiated upwards, and loosening a puff of breath, he waited.

Silence stretched on as he frowned down at the plate and Shizuo frowned at Izaya, until the latter deemed it safe enough to touch. Inquisitively, he squashed a piece of the lump between his thumb and forefinger. Unlike last time, Izaya didn't reject the food, albeit he bore a small wince as he bit into it.

Seeing the raven dig into his all-you-can-eat, and he had to force back his instinct as he hovered his hand over the blob to check and see if it was still hot. Upon feeling nothing, his mind went into thought for a few moments before he shrugged internally and poked his finger into it.

Shizuo didn't exactly trust his senses sometimes since they were usually too unreliable to work with, on the number one spot being pain tolerance, but nonetheless, the blob crumbled at the touch, and while he was irritated by that, at least the food was cold enough to eat.

Not long after they had finished, the slats unlatched, and Izaya pressed his face to the ground to try and peer through it. Darkness, punctuated by an icy draft. A complete juxtaposition to the lit-up hall he just made out when the door had opened previously. He tucked the tray in, and the aperture closed like a maw.

After watching the raven look around his environment, the other figured he wasn't going to waste his time checking and simply chucked the tray in with no real thought if it was going to hurt someone on the other side or not.

Without much to do, Izaya practiced walking around on his prosthesis for a while before decidedly facing away from the mirror, where a ghost of his former being stared back at him, and leaning back into a corner. He crossed his arms over his chest, settling his chin onto the crook formed by his knees. The scent of antiseptic rose up, and he straightened, nose wrinkling in distaste. Already, boredom had begun to permeate through his mind, and for a fleeting moment, he wandered what had become of his reliable source of entertainment.

 _I'm gonna go fuckin' insane watching the flea go insane._ There wasn't much he could do aside from using Izaya as his personal television, but what he _did_ do in his spare time was play tic-tac-toe with himself by lightly grinding his overgrown nail into the wall, as well as writing in the number of days passed a la prison-style via tally marks; at some point though, he stopped trying to figure out the time and did the occasional simple math calculation or two.

Soon enough, Izaya had fallen into a fitful sleep, one punctuated by the recurring nightmares. When a loud beep sounded, he flinched awake to find that his door had slid open completely. Again, the darkness yawned open like a void, and the frigid draft made the hair on the back of his neck rise up. He had enough awareness to count the seconds under his breath, and once he had gotten to five minutes, the door had shut.

 _Huh,_ the blond on the other side sparingly thought. _That's weird._

* * *

With each day that passed and each tally mark that was carved into the glass, Izaya had fallen into a routine. He would jolt awake from whatever terrible dream his subconscious had provided him, pace around the room, reluctantly eat the daily meal that did little to satiate his growing hunger, before sitting back down in the corner. A recent addition was his exploration of the halls beyond the door during the five-minute time frame. Up until recently, he hadn't quite found anything beyond darkness that became more wholesome with each turn he took, with every echo of his disjointed footsteps, though he did begin building a mental map of the facility. There didn't seem to be a exit - it was simply a series of interconnected halls.

And yet, he had come across what he assumed to be a bathroom, and after scourging around in search of soap caught in the drains, he managed to shower in icy water and returned dressed in thin, white clothes with teeth chattering, lips blue, and a throat sore from coughing. He walked around more and attempted rubbing warmth back into his skin, yet it seemed his growing fever would serve to warm himself up.

 _Where the fuck are you going, flea? You look like hypothermia's best pal._

"Multiple shower spouts," he muttered, directing his words at the camera. Perhaps Izaya was speaking merely to fill up the silence with his own voice, slightly rougher from lack of use, or rather that he was aware _someone_ was listening and watching through the cameras or microphones. It was comforting, somehow, yet not enough for him to feel the ever-so-present press of aloneness. "I'm not the only one here, ne? I'm bound to run into someone."

"I wonder what makes you think that," the other sarcastically responded. Though... _There's… what? There's more people in this fuckin' place? We're not the only ones?_ Shizuo leaned back, pressing a hand to his brow. Any sort of rhetorical question that Izaya posed warded off the overbearing isolation and depressing thoughts that slowly came to plague his mind over the course of… well, he had no clue himself, at this point.

Izaya trailed off, blinking out stray droplets of water from his damp hair before wrapping his arms around himself and settling to his chosen spot in the room - the corner where glass met concrete. "Would medicine for pneumonia be too much to ask for?" A false hint of chipperness graced his tone, before the answer of silence had him laughing to himself, one that shortly devolved into a series of coughs.

Shizuo rubbed his eyes with a hand as he sighed and pulled his head down to look at the floor. _How long do we have to take this shit for? Might as well stop sending us food and water, assholes._

Izaya shifted around in place so that he faced the mirror - hollowed cheeks, bloodshot eyes, chapped lips, flushed cheeks. Using the lockpick, a series of strokes were pressed into the glass. Names, carved in Izaya's neat, typewriter handwriting. Names of people alive and dead, old and young, good and misguided. All humans who had made an impression on him, just as he was making an impression in the glass. "If only you'd see me now~ Your king, reduced to an emaciated animated corpse, ne?"

"Maybe a king in _your_ fucking hea-"

His expression was almost fond, almost bitter, and this time, when his fingers curled inward and bore red crescents into his palm, he didn't resist the temptation to send his fist into the glass.

Shizuo jolted as he stared, dumbstruck, at the other. His mouth and mind didn't know what sort of coherent sentence or thought to form, so they blanked out as the blond leaned back and looked at the other, who was quite slowly losing his mind.

Izaya's eyebrows raised minutely as if surprised by his own actions, and his lips quirked up into a smile again as he admired the liquid trickling down his knuckles. Vaguely, he could feel the sting of pain, and yet his mind drowned it out in thoughts that came far too often, thoughts that were growing harder to suppress with each sign of weakness he showed. _Human enough to panic, to seek revenge, to hate, to feel. Human enough get sick, to value self-preservation over ideals, to succumb to impulsivity._

"Maa~!" he suddenly exclaimed, rolling onto his back so that he lay spread-eagle.

"You have _really_ fuckin' lost it," Shizuo whispered under his breath.

"'Everything past is unreal,'" Izaya stated, allowing his train of thought to turn into words. "'Everything future is unreal, everything imagined, absent, mental, is unreal. Ultimately real is only the present moment.'"

It took Shizuo a couple solid seconds to realize it was a quote. _So he's not_ totally _gone - yet_.

"Presentism, where the only objects and happening that exist are in the present. 'Present' as a word in itself is redundant. 'I am present in this room,' for example, would better be said as 'I am in this room,' as to simply exist in the present time is enough." He lifted his hand up to the fluorescent lighting, watching the blood trail down his palm, and laid his other arm across his chest. "That's simply talking - what presentism teaches is that only the now matters. The past doesn't exist, the future doesn't exist."

The other raised up his knee and placed his head on it, deciding to just stare at Izaya in vague interest as he rambled.

"Ah, but without the past and the future, how would we depict the passage of time? And therein lies eternalism - the opposite - where the past, present, and future are all equally real. Tomorrow exists right now, even when we can't see it, as does yesterday, and the day before. Yet time in itself depends on a person's frame of reference. 'The distinction between the past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.' If the past, present, and future are all real, fixed, and unchanging, that would mean that free will and the flow of time are also illusionary, an evolutionary trait of ours to help us learn from previous actions and plan future ones."

A pause to catch his breath. His voice had been gradually growing softer with each breath as fever set into place, and Izaya pulled away his sweat-soaked bangs from his forehead. "I, on the other hand, believe tomorrow to be divergent, to be reliant on a group of individual choices, yet if I were to indulge in either theory, what would that mean?"

For a change, Shizuo actually held that thought in his mind and considered his answers, before dismissing them with a huff as his mind hit a brick wall.

"If the past and future didn't exist, would it mean that they don't matter? Or if they existed simultaneously, would anything one does matter, as what we perceive as the future is strictly determined?"

"Start makin' some fuckin' sense, flea…" The blond muttered, quite confused with everything that Izaya was rambling on about.

"Shizu-chan."

The other's eyes quickly narrowed as he felt a wave of confusion and anxiety hit him in the back of the head. _What?_ _He can't hear me, though, right? So…_ "Eh? Talking about me already, flea?"

Izaya cracked a grin, one that reached varying magnitudes of mania, before being cut off by a dry cough. "Should I let go, or am I predestined to not do so?"

"Let go?" Shizuo's lips twitched downwards as he curled his hands into fists. "Of _what?_ " He snarled, teeth grinding against each other in anger, while his mind internally berated him. _What do you_ think _?_

He snapped his fingers. He had lowered his voice to a murmur, yet the speakers on Shizuo's side of the room grew louder to compensate. "Just like that, should I erase this fixation fueled by hatred?"

"Hah." A singular, empty noise of laughter echoed his room. "As _if_ ," he shot his head forward in disgust alongside his chains. "You'd ever even think about that while sane. You won't; you _never_ will because you're you, Izaya."

A giggle, as Izaya turned on his side to observe his reflection. "Ah, what am I thinking? Of course Shizu-chan would scoff at me. Perhaps throw a couple insults. Not to say that he's wrong…" The next question was directed at the camera. "What do _you_ think? The only reason he's here is to get under my skin. I can't imagine the brute doing anything malicious enough to get on your radar."

Shizuo went silent, and he continued to ruminate in thought.

 _What's your end goal here, flea? What are you trying to pull from under the carpet, huh?_

"Hehe, now I see what you did there. Kiss and make-up? How hilariously unfunny, geez…" The raven's words tapered off into the quiet, and soft, rasping breathing with the ever-so-often cough rose up to meet it.

Once the long rant was finished, the blond unwrapped his fingers which he had unknowingly put a tight grip on his legs. His own breath was let out after a long period of being held in, and the sudden urge to sleep overwhelmed him - it seemed like being caught up in one of Izaya's delusional spiels gave him enough energy to listen and respond, mostly in the forms of insults. But everything that he said, it certainly gave him food for thought, as he settled down and let his mind wander into darkness...

* * *

In the next two days, Izaya hadn't moved from that position, not to eat, not to shower. It was a boycott that had served its purpose in the form of sets of pills, and once again, he had consented to eating. Aside from that, he would speak his thoughts aloud in his waking hours and whisper incoherently in his sleep. Sometimes he would talk about his humans, other times about philosophy, others about theories he had come up with, and yet, there wouldn't be a one-sided conversation where Shizuo's name hadn't been even slightly mentioned. At times, he would simply fall silent, running a hand along the cast, the prosthesis, the scabbing cuts.

Every once in awhile, he would become so still that the only sign of life was the uneven rise and fall of his chest.

The slow pressure in the back of Shizuo's head had grown stronger with every day, and each time Izaya stopped talking or moving, that pressure turned into a full-blown headache which he had to deal with for an abhorrent amount of time, at least, until Izaya did _something_. Every hour that passed in the outside world was lost in his mind; it felt like he never had a life outside here. He started questioning how life was outside of the cell, back in Ikebukuro, back in the _real_ world, not chained up like a _beast_ in solitude, with the only source of entertainment being his rival, the one and only Orihara Izaya whose psyche had slowly been crumbling with every passing day.

Shizuo didn't know when it was going to end, and the more he watched the other spiral downwards, the more it started to take a toll on him, his mind continuously wandering towards the philosophies, theories, empty conversations that the raven could somehow prop up on a continuous basis. Many times did he have to forcibly blank out his mind and stop himself from thinking, yet the only alternative to that was to simply sleep, so eventually, he let himself indulge in whatever Izaya said. He was rational enough to know that the majority of what Izaya said should be taken with a grain of salt, but things like…

" _Loneliness is the bitter realization of all the barriers that separate us, and so we long for a connection with another when we are made to never be fully understood."_

Agreeing with Izaya on something was rarer than any event in the cosmic universe, but everything's possible. A lot on what he say didn't make sense, that was true, but a broken clock is right twice a day, and by the end of it, Shizuo's mind wandered into darker thoughts, ones that he never really thought he'd think of, yet here, they had free reign to summon themselves and batter against his train of thought. It was depressing, to put it bluntly.

Shizuo's head bobbed up when he caught the flicker of movement from the other. It seemed that by now Izaya had almost recovered from the sickness, and he was back to walking around to train himself on how to move with a prosthetic. Now, he had pressed himself into the very corner of the room, inquisitively peering up at the camera. It was effectively a blind spot for that specific one, and yet, that wasn't a good enough reason for the informant to keep going back and forth, changing the angles he had on it.

It didn't take long until he had craned up on his toes to reach up to touch it, yet his fingers fell short.

"... What?" Shizuo's voice came out more as a half-whisper than anything as he narrowed his eyes at the other in curiosity.

Izaya paused to inspect the room before he approached the pulley and tugged on the crank, winding the chain up so that the shackles were left suspended in the air by chains. Holding the lockpicks between his teeth, he approached the center of the room, maneuvered his hands back into the manacles, and shut them with a dissonant _click._

To test himself, he lifted himself off the ground using his good hand. Immediately, his arm protested the movement, and with a small puff of breath, he dropped back down with a sigh. It could still work, yet this wasn't going to do his weakening body any favors.

 _Are you trying to… ?_ Shizuo's thoughts were going to lead to an insult, but he thought over it once more. _Huh. Why not, I guess._

Taking a couple steps back, he tightened his fingers over the length of chain and hopped up, using momentum to swing his body forward like a pendulum. The added height gave him enough leeway to kick his prosthesis into the camera. With the shriek of plastic crumpling, the entire gadget came off and dropped to the ground… as did the whirr and click of the pulley's crank giving way to send Izaya sprawling hard onto his back.

He gasped, lungs constricting to force the air out of him, before allowing himself a soft groan as he sat up, gingerly rubbing the sore spots.

 _So…_ The other raised an eyebrow. _What did you get out of that?_

Izaya crawled over to the broken remains of the camera, shifting them around before procuring a neat, white roll of paper.

 _The mirror is fake._

His eyes shot to the object in question.

"C'mon, figured it out yet?" Shizuo rhetorically asked, knowing the answer to his own question. "Now how the hell do you plan on breaking the glass, eh?"

A short, harsh laugh as the raven came to the realization, one that sent him running his hands through his hair at how _obvious_ it was. "Of course. _Of course._ "

Shizuo pulled at his chains with a bit more irritation this time. "Get these fuckin' chains off me."

He glared hard at his reflection as he inwardly cursed himself. _Stupid, stupid,_ _ **stupid.**_ _It was already odd enough how the kidnapper had fallen silent, how he'd act, how he'd get_ me _to talk about the brute, and yet I didn't see through it._ Another bark of laughter, as the unfamiliar anger he'd come to associate with Shizuo ever since his leg had been lopped off came back. _And here I was completely played like a fool._ "You… _You._ "

"You talking about _me_ , flea? 'Cause I got something to say back." He growled as he kept pulling on the chains, harder this time.

"In your words," a pause as he took in a breath to suppress all the shame and express all his loathing in two, primitive syllables - " _Fuck you."_

"Yeah?" Shizuo didn't miss a beat in responding. "'Cause fuck you, too, flea."

"What was I? Your personal television? The _entire_ time-" Abruptly, he cut himself off, tearing his eyes away. _My fault._ "Rot in there for all I care."

"I don't think they're gonna separate us _any_ fuckin' time soon, pal." The cloud of anger settling on his mind was slowly thickening. "Get real comfy."

Izaya paced away to retrieve the fallen lockpicks, unceremoniously freed himself from his bonds, and flung the shackles down as if they had burned him. He paced back and forth, from one end of the room to the other, mind hard at work.

Shizuo looked up at the speakers with a scowl. "Really enjoying yourself right now, aren't you?" _Fuckin' bastard._

The more seconds that shot through the air filled with Izaya's mismatched steps, the slower he grew before finally drawing to a stop. With a small frown, he leaned down to pick up the manacles and lock them to one another. Shifting his grip around so that he held it like an unorthodox bat, he appraised the mirror. "Solitary confinement isn't the test after all. It is knocking this barrier down."

A huff came from the blond. "Now you're gonna tell me some philosophical bullshit, Izaya." His eyes swung over from the speakers to the raven.

"Ahaha, how gross~ Do you feel like you understand me a little better now, hmm?" A one-handed swing, one that did little but chip away pieces of glass. "Watching how I act when I falsely assume that I am alone?" Another attack, yet the same effect.

"Figured that you were nutty before, figure that you're nutty still."

"What was it I had said?" And another. "That loneliness is the byproduct of everyone being fundamentally different from one another?" And another. He huffed, discarding the pair of shackles. "That simply makes everyone all the same. But you and I, we were always different, weren't we?" Izaya pressed his back to the glass and slid down till he met the floor. "Anomalies. Legends. I wasn't supposed to feel lonely, and you weren't supposed to try and lessen your loneliness." He closed his eyes, tipping his head back. "But that changed."

At first, Shizuo was going to bite back with an insult, but as Izaya got further into his little speech, he found himself sinking on his back and towards the floor, as his chin bobbed up for his gaze to meet the ceiling. "There's no punchline this time, is there?"

"Who's fault is it? Mine? Yours? Theirs?" He crossed his ankles, watching flesh meet metal. "Ah, but one thing hasn't changed~ If anything, it's even more prominent. Take a wild guess."

"Give me a wild answer," the other replied, in monotone.

"We both hate each other, ne~? So let's make a mutual promise to never break that cycle."

"..." No response was given as Shizuo examined Izaya's body - the back of it, at least - while he let his mind fall into thought. _He's right. It's not like anything's gonna break it. It's not going to change._

"Ne?" Izaya repeated, turning partially towards the mirror. His lips were quirked up into a smile. "Ne?"

"Ne?"

* * *

After that, there was a lapse of silence, one that was so encapsulating that it seemed as though the room was devoid of any life at all. When the door had slid open as it did every day, Izaya disappeared into the halls wordlessly, perhaps in search of an object heavy enough to break the glass, perhaps to get away from the prying ears of his enemy that he couldn't see.

And yet, he found himself with icy water running down his back as he washed himself in the dark. He had learned by now that soaking in the water too long was what caused him to freeze, so he showered quickly and ducked out from underneath the spout, shaking off droplets of water. As he dressed, he counted the seconds under his breath. Around two more minutes; more than enough for him to get back.

He trailed one hand against the wall as a guide, taking the necessary turns.

His mismatched footsteps echoed hollowly, the cold draft numbing the tip of his nose and his ears.

A sound - another pair of feet coming from ahead of him. Izaya stilled, pulse drumming in his ears as his breath condensed in the air. For a single, jolting moment, he considered that it was Shizuo, but the voice that sounded was different… Off.

" _I heard you. Don't be quiet."_

The deep intonation, scratchy from lack of use, was masculine, Russian. Izaya's brows knitted together. On different circumstances, he would have been unable to suppress the smirk of satisfaction at the opportunity to communicate with another, yet now, his lips formed a thin, hard line. On the other hand, he knew better than to waste the opportunity to gather information. _Let's not get ahead of myself._ Izaya withdrew his hand from the wall, clenching his fingers together as he tensed. " _Who are you?"_

A harsh laugh. " _An inmate here. Like you. Been here for over a month in my own stench before I tried to leave."_ His presence drew closer. " _You don't smell."_

Izaya backed away, blinking in a vain effort to adjust to the dark. He closed this eyes, focusing on his hearing and the internal clock in his head. " _The showers are that way, behind me."_

A pause. " _How can I trust you? What if you're one of them?"_

" _No need to be so paranoid. You haven't talked to anyone in awhile, no? We can be friends."_

There was a displacement of air, heat rushing towards him. Izaya hardly had a chance to duck away when a fist whistled past his face, and he took advantage of his prosthesis to kick the other in the back of the knee, forcing him to crumple to the ground.

" _Fuck! You are one of them!"_

Less than a minute now. " _How peculiar for you to assume that, but I should get going. Ta-ta."_

" _YOU! Come_ back!"

Running wasn't the most comfortable experience, and as he rounded the corner into the familiarity of his hallway, he knew he wouldn't make it. He stopped, placidly watching as the door closed, taking whatever light there was with it. Behind him, there was the sound of metal meeting concrete.

Locked in.

He pressed his back to the wall and slowly slid down, cupping his hands over his mouth and exhaling into them, the heat of his breath reflecting and radiating over his cheeks. Izaya rubbed warmth into his leg, his torso, his neck. Routinely, as if this was normal. As if he didn't feel the hard press of panic and stinging in the back of his vision.

His arms wrapped around himself, and he shuddered. What was it Shizuo had said? That he'd die in the dark, cold and alone?

 _Shizu-chan is terrifying, if he could predict the future._

A shaky chuckle.

 _Shizu-chan? Terrifying? I must be losing my mind to even consider the thought. His space-heating abilities would … Hmph. He must be getting a kick out of me not returning. Ahaha, it would be funnier if he is_ worried. _And there I was talking big._

A flash of a grin, before Izaya's breathing hitched and slowed, growing shallow. He went back to attempts at warming himself, every so often moving around as to not grow to stiff.

However, with each hour that passed, Izaya grew drowsier, and the violent shivering had relaxed, almost stopped.

' _Hypothermia,'_ Shinra's voice diagnosed, as chipper as always. ' _Don't sleep, Orihara-kun. As much as I would like it, you won't wake up if you do.'_

* * *

A small exhale, and with it arose a thought he had attempted to bury ever since it had taken root.

 _How human of me to feel lonely._

Brewing feelings of anxiousness punched Shizuo in the stomach; yet he wondered why he even worried.

He rubbed the back of his head. _It's fine,_ he thought. Why was he even worrying about the scumbag? If he got shot by a firing squad, that's Izaya's problem, not his own.

Looking down at himself, even with his monster physiology, he felt his body become a bit more malnourished, a bit more hungry, a bit more worse for wear. Even physically, he could feel himself be a little thinner than he was before, and back in Ikebukuro, he was already thin as he was then.

Seconds passed, and as those seconds turned to minutes, then to hours, Shizuo became increasingly more impatient and irritated and did various things like tapping his foot onto the floor simply to pass the time. _So this is what feeling completely alone is like, huh. Fuck, I might just go insane like the flea._

In vague hopes that he was just hallucinating, he pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes before looking down then back up at Izaya's door - locked, as it has been for so long now.

 _Is this it?_ Shizuo was worried about what was going on. Was the flea dead? Did he just leave him behind? _Of course he would._ But they wouldn't let _him_ of all people go, not after whatever he did to get the both of them here.

 _C'mon, any fucking day now._ He weakly pulled at the chains as some way kill the seconds - and the metal didn't budge, since it was, again, the same metal Shizuo couldn't even punch through with full strength - _What the hell is this thing even made out of?_ He thought about it for a while, as the topic of what the metal was made out of distracted him from the odd disappearance of the raven.

 _It isn't titanium or anything. Maybe it's some kind of alloy, maybe-_

Shizuo was annoyed at his lack of knowledge about this kind of thing. It didn't seem like that kept his mind off Izaya for long.

 _Fucking flea rat bastard._

Over fifteen hours had passed.

He felt pangs of hunger, thirst, and sleep, and while they were offset slightly, his paranoia and growing insomnia were not.

The silence was broken by the manacles on his wrists and ankles snapping open.

Shizuo's first instinct was to get up, which consequently led to a stumble, forcing him to lean a hand against the wall.

Regaining full control of his limbs by making a few rounds around the cell, he stared at the mirror.

Frustration hidden in the back of Shizuo's mind exploded as he reeled back a punch and sent it flying at the mirror, yelling out a "MOTHERFUCKER!" in a roar of all-consuming rage.

With a terrible groan of glass shattering, reflective shards were discarded about, covering the ground in sparkling grit. At his feet, Shizuo was offered a view of himself in a jagged piece of mirror, with a name of a person he didn't know carved into it.

A snarl was in place of Shizuo's usual expression, and as his breathing evened out, he stared at the reflection for a while.

 _What am I?_

He sweeped the shards aside with his foot.

 _A monster?_

Walking into the other room, he ran his hand over his face, sighing. _I wish I knew the answer._

His eyes glanced over to the place where the incident between the doppelganger and Izaya occurred, and he felt bile creep up his throat.

There was nothing to do, so he decided to simply stare at the ground - more specifically, stare at all the names etched into the pieces of glass.

On the opposite side of the room, his slat slid open to offer food.

 _It's halfway through the day, I think. The door opens a few hours after that._

 _Stay awake._ He rubbed his eyes, again. Drowsiness creeped up on the back of his mind.

 _I can usually stay up for a lot longer. Guess being chained up takes that away from me._

He leaned against the wall and stared at the door, occasionally taking a walk around the rooms to stave off the tiredness that rose with every passing hour.

 _Don't pass out; it's too early._

But in the next hour, Shizuo succumbed, and he fell asleep on the floor, rolling over multiple times restlessly. To put it lightly, he wasn't having a nice 'sleep'.

It was when the distinctive sound of the door unlocking did he snap up.

 _Out. I need to get out._ Quickly, he got up to his feet and stumbled out into the hall, light from the room spilling out to distinguish Izaya's form, huddled against the wall.

He was uncharacteristically slow to respond - the hands slowly kneading himself stopped, and his head lifted, followed by the rest of his quivering body. Dull eyes met Shizuo's, shortly dropping down.

"You're alive…" The blond exclaimed, with just a tint of amazement and relief to it.

Izaya's chin dipped to his chest, in what could have been fatigue or confusion, and he staggered forward …

… moving past the other and into the warmth of the room.

"Hey," Shizuo called out lightly. What should've been an ' _Are you okay?_ ' was violently thrown back at him when he realized who he was talking to, and instead he opted for silence.

Izaya glanced at the other from over his shoulder. His lips were tinged blue, ears and cheeks flushed from the cold, crystals freckling his hair, and his voice was a quiet slur, "What?"

"How'd you get locked out there… ?"

Izaya turned back to the room. "You broke the mirror," he noted unnecessarily, toeing a particularly large section of glass, one that had splotches of crusted blood.

The rustic patches made the other stop up and look over to the raven, lips contorting into a scowl, but he didn't say anything. What would he say? _I'm sorry you killed the person who tried to rape you?_ But Izaya did derive a lot of fun out of the whole thing, from his perspective at least, so he really wasn't sure himself at this point.

The raven bent down, numb shaking fingers tightening over the piece, and straightened once more in a clumsy, uncoordinated movement.

"Just get some rest," Shizuo mumbled. "Seriously."

Izaya took much longer to respond than he should have. "Showing concern?" His hands faltered, causing the glass to drop to his feet and fragment. His brows furrowed in confusion, and he dropped down once more to search for another piece.

The blond blinked. "What are you doing? What're you trying to do?"

"Self-defense," he explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Shizuo wrapped a hand around Izaya's stomach and lifted him up from the floor with a sigh. "C'mon. Don't cut yourself."

Izaya mimicked the sound, sagging. His skin was frigid to the touch through the thinness of his clothes, the edges of his hair now wet and thawing. "I can walk now, you know. No need to baby me."

"Oh, you're lucid enough to talk for more than two sentences." Izaya's retort was ignored until the other got into his own room, settling him down on the floor afterwards. "But you're too stupid not to step on the glass," he tilted his head to examine the raven's features. "I'm pretty sure."

"Stu…" Izaya glanced up at him, mystified. "You're the stupid one, ne? Stupid enough to care, but not stupid enough to hold my killing someone else over my head, I'll give you that."

Shizuo crossed his arms and gave him a glare. " _I_ wasn't the one who got locked out and nearly turned into a fucking Izay-cicle, now did I?"

"Ah… You're right. A lapse in judgement." His words continued to run into one another as if he were drunk. "Don't let that get to your head."

"I'll kick your ass once you warm up, so get cozy, flea." His words of aggression were tinted by a strange sense of calmness. "I didn't forget the fact you killed someone."

"What a coincidence; neither do I." He let out a giggle at that, before muttering something incomprehensibly underneath his breath.

"God," Shizuo pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're a fucking nutjob no matter what state you're in."

"Don't do that," Izaya stated, voice clearer now as he turned onto his side and cushioned his head with his arm.

"Don't do _what_ , exactly," the other growled out.

"Stay calm." A pout. "It's annoying. I don't know what to do with you when you aren't angry."

"Great," Shizuo's lips twitched upwards. "Then I'll keep being calm. I'm sure you'll love that."

"Geez," he whined, one that dissolved into a fit of coughs, before he turned around so that his back faced Shizuo. "Have you been listening to me?" A pause as he clarified. "Through the glass?"

The blond curled his fingers in thought as he looked down before he uncrossed his arms and let them flop to the side.. "From start to finish."

"Then… your answer." A tint of amusement graced his tone as he snapped his fingers and repeated his one-sided question. "Just like that, should I erase this fixation fueled by hatred?"

Between the duo, a long stretch of deafeningly loud silence rang throughout the room as Shizuo's lips curled into a frown. He took a deep breath before sighing. "As _if_ you ever will," he accused, irritation lightly present in his voice.

"Is that a challenge?" Izaya sat back up with great difficulty, grimacing. He determinedly stuck out his hand up to the other. "Hello, I'm Orihara Izaya."

Shizuo looked at the hand before looking back at the raven, as he growled out, "My name is Heiwajima _Shizuo_ , and you better remember that, 'cause I'm not shaking hands with a flea."

"Be courteous. My arm's getting tired, 'Heiwajima _Shizuo_ ,'" Izaya sing-songed, whence his arm dropped anyway. He squinted at the ex-bartender. "Would you like to be friends?"

The other furrowed his eyebrows and narrowed his eyes. "I don't _like_ you," he muttered in a low voice.

"You're doing it wrong. You're supposed to say, 'Yes, yes I would like that,'" Izaya flatly corrected. "And you say that _I'm_ the stubborn one obsessed with the rivalry."

"You're doing this just to _spite_ ," he emphasized by leaning forward, then back. "Me. I'm not buying your bullshit. You're not even going to remember this tomorrow."

More insistently this time, he reiterated, " _Hello_ , I'm Orihara Izaya. And you are?"

A second or two passed as Shizuo stared at the other, before he let out a sigh. "I'm Heiwajima Shizuo."

"Do you want to be friends?"

"I don't think you make friends by asking strangers if you want to be their friend, Orihara-san."

"Hmm…" He seemed to think hard and finally reached a conclusion. "Do you want to meet me again?"

 _I don't have anything to lose by entertaining the flea. Better than having him_ annoy _me to death_. "Surprised you want to."

Perplexed now. "Why?"

"People usually run away after the first meet and greet."

"I'm not like most people."

"I noticed."

His head listed to the side, cool water running down the length of his jaw. Color was returning to his face in the form of red-hot fever, and he idly rubbed warmth into the rest of his body. "Don't those people treat you like a monster, then?"

"They…" A reluctant pause. "Do. Yeah."

"Doesn't that mean I've been treating you like a human, Shizu-chan?" He blinked, as if realizing he had broken the charade, before sighing. "Ah, my bad. Start again?"

 _As if, Izaya. As if._ A roll of the eyes and an irritated huff. "No."

And so, the cycle repeated. "Hello, I'm Orihara Izaya."

Shizuo walked over to the other side and sat down, putting his back against the wall, facing Izaya with a scowl. "I'm Heiwajima Shizuo," he muttered. Tiredness was slowly starting to approach the confines of his mind.

"Do you want to be friends?"

"No," the other muttered out again. _And we never will be._

The small tremors wracking Izaya's body were decreasing in intensity as he warmed up. "Hello, I'm Orihara Izaya. Do you want to be friends?'

 _We were never meant to be friends. Not in this world, not in any._ "No… n' you didn't even wait for my fuckin' name."

"Hello, I'm Orihara Izaya. What is yours?" he amended pointedly. His words tapered off every now and then into incoherency, and his body gradually sagged further and further to the side.

 _Even so, if…_ "I'm Heiwajima Shizuo."

"Do you want to be friends?"

 _If we didn't hate each other on first sight,_ would _have we been friends? That's what I wanted to ask. I don't think I'll ever get the answer to that._ "Sorry, but… no."

"In another world, would you want to be friends?"

Shizuo mumbled an unintelligible response to Izaya's statement before he felt his eyes grow weak. His body went limp as it gently landed onto its side. Before his mind could blank out, however, he had one final thought.

 _It doesn't matter though, does it?_

"Hello, I'm Ori…ha..."


	15. All Change, Is Not Growth

**Author's Notes:** So... if you've noticed the delays, it's because it's getting difficult to keep up with the schedule. It sucks that we're doing it, but we're taking a week long hiatus to recuperate. But we'll come back to you with smack-dab quality content, I swear it!

* * *

 **All Change, Is Not Growth.**

It was the same dream that visited Izaya whenever he was spared a few moments of sleep.

He would stand before a mirror, much like the tangible realization of it, gaze forced to his reflection. Try as he might, all he could do was _stare_ at himself, blank-faced, hollow. Slowly, his mirror image would grow taller, broader, tanner, leaner, hair bleaching blonde and falling across his brow in messy strands, irises lightening to a honey brown, lips upturning from dead and slack into a bloodied smirk.

All at once, hands would reach out and enclose over his throat with a dissonant shatter of glass, just as the lower half of Izaya's leg would disappear and thus bring him onto his back, the Shizuo he had conjured up following and pressing down on his jugular. Just as it was before, all Izaya could do was sit there, any protest or struggle dying down before it even left his lips.

Not even as unsuppressed terror and loathing coursed through his body, as he fought to get his thoughts in order, as he repeated to himself over and over again that it _wasn't real_ , he would never manage to convince himself until he snapped awake, breath short and adrenaline rushing.

Normally, the dream would end whence he started to feel the bones in his neck fracture. However, this time, the pressure on his neck eased as Shizuo settled his forearms on either side of Izaya's head and nudged their foreheads together. When he spoke, it wasn't in the guttural, gruff intonation Izaya was used to - rather it was his own voice, rasping from lack of use.

"Do you want to be friends?"

 _What?_

"Do you want to meet me again?"

 _...huh?_

"I'm not like most people."

 _Where is this..._

"Do you want to be friends?"

... _coming from?_

A repetition of the question, then another, then another, then another before…

Izaya wasn't sure if he was waking up from a nightmare or waking up _into_ one.

He was slow to adjust to the the only source of light in the room - a projector placed off the side, playing a roll of footage on a loop, with the speakers around him crackling with the audio.

" _Do you want to be friends?"_

" _No."_

He was silent as the new pieces of information filtered, before a short, empty laugh sounded from the informant. The words and video were enough for him to fill in the blanks of whatever vague recollection he had of what had happened before, and it was enough for him to wrap an arm around his torso and laugh a little more. _Amusing. So amusing._

His eyes settled upon the snoring form of Shizuo, and he felt his fingers clench.

Breaths harsh and pulse erratic, Izaya scanned his surroundings. Unlike the stale air from before, stifling humidity and heat permeated the vicinity, condensing against his skin in the form of cool rivulets. The metallic tang of blood invaded his nostrils, an unwelcome remainder of the first time he awoke to the pungent scent. A short check on himself for injuries thankfully came up short.

His attention caught at the shards of glass littering the ground, dim light scintillating off their surfaces, and with hands slipping and fumbling over one another, he grasped at the nearest piece. Grip tightening despite the stinging pinpricks of pain that arose, he crawled over to the brute and straddled his waist.

The raven wasted no time in pressing the jagged edge of glass to Shizuo's throat.

Once the drip-drop of crimson red began to slide down his throat, the other's eyes frantically shot open - and instinctively, the familiar rage pounded in his mind as his fight-or-flight reflex kicked in, and the most nearby object was the piece of sharp glass currently attempting to jab into his throat; an arm shot out to violently shove it away.

Izaya hissed at the movement, the makeshift weapon cutting in his palm, but he nonetheless tried once more, this time slashing at the blond's face.

The change of environment shocked Shizuo enough so that the raven spilled blood on his cheek.

He wanted to ask what the hell was wrong with him, where they were - _What are you doing?_ \- yet the anger in his soul was all-consuming. His rational consciousness slipped further back as he felt himself lose control over his body.

 _Is it ever going to end?_

 _It's never going to end._

His body threw a lousy punch at Izaya, body swinging itself like some sort of baseball bat.

He was at a close enough proximity that the attack connected easily, sending the smaller male soaring back and slamming into the wall, before he slumped down with a wince. The glass had slipped from his grip and shattered into bloody shards in a grotesque arc across the linoleum floor. Izaya's shaking fingers closed over the fresh cut in his palm. Blood collected in his mouth and was forced down rather than spat out. "Worth a shot." The words were whispered, yet with only the soft audio to compete with, he might as well have been yelling.

"Izaya…" The other growled out, stomping across the room as he balled his fists and let them rest at the sides. "You're a piece of _shit_ ," he emphasized with a spit on the floor. "Maybe I should fucking kill you now, HAH!?" He stopped short in front of the other, his height making it so that he loomed down at the other.

There was no reply, not even a hint of defiance in the other's posture or expression.

"If you're gonna keep being so fucking quiet then I'm gonna make you _NOT_ quiet." He cracked his knuckles and pulled back an arm slightly.

A simple drop of his chin to his chest. It was difficult enough to make out his expression in the semi-darkness, and yet a distinct grimace soured his features.

"Tch." The scowl on the other's face deepened, as he grabbed Izaya by the front of his shirt and pulled him up against the wall to get a close-up look of his face. "Come on and _laugh_ like you always do, scumbag."

Izaya didn't meet his eyes, and yet he managed a ghost of a smirk. "That should do it, shouldn't it?"

"You might as well be, bastard." The grip on the other's shirt tightened, and Shizuo felt his teeth grind together in irritation.

"Right?" His tone was compelled into a practiced purr. "Go on. Get angry and animalistic like you always do. I killed someone and then tried to kill you; I deserve more than a flimsy punch to the chest, don't I?"

"I _hate_ you," the other whispered. "I _hate_ you more than anyone else, Izaya."

Their cycle of hatred was in a state of perpetual loop, an unbreakable and undeterred bond of abhorrence for one another.

"And I wouldn't have it any other way."

That was always how things have been, how they were, and how they will be.

When Shizuo pulled Izaya down and settled him onto the floor, the thoughts in his head swirled around so much that it nearly gave him a headache.

 _No… it_ _ **has**_ _to end. Every loop is meant to be broken._

The forced grin of the informant's fell, as if his suspicions have been confirmed. He grasped Shizuo's hands that clung limply to Izaya's shirt to keep them from dropping. Blood and sweat had him readjust his grip every time it slipped. "Don't tell me I planted thoughts in your head when I could hardly string together a sentence without slurring my words? You're more hopeless than I thought." He was almost amazed, almost disappointed, but not quite either of them.

There wasn't any response given as Shizuo pulled his now blood-streaked hands away from the other's. The only thing he did was stare at the other with a half-vacant, half-somber frown.

"I _killed_ someone. _Me_." That single syllable was punctuated by the same, odd mixture of emotion. "Your look-alike no less."

"... So what's that mean, huh?" Shizuo harshly responded. "You enjoyed it? You sure looked like you did."

His gaze dropped to the side. "I did."

"You still think you're better than me? A hero?" An insufficient amount of time passed for a response before he continued. "Don't answer that; already know the answer to it."

"Right…" Izaya trailed off, enough so that it seemed as though he would leave it at that - at least, until he reached down for the other's hand, their palms sliding over one another.

"What are you trying to do?"

He laced their fingers together. "I'm not any better than you, ne? Which is why…" Their interlocked hands lifted up, and Izaya laid Shizuo's hand over his throat, holding it there, where his pulse was warm and fast. "To bring things back to how they were, you should kill me."

"Now you want me to kill you, huh? I'll be _damned_ ," he pulled back his hand and scoffed at the other. "If I give you the satisfaction."

"Satisfaction?" He drew his palm across his throat, smearing red, before holding the back of his neck and peering up at the other placidly. "You said it before; you hate me. I am giving you the opportunity to do what you've dreamed of, so whether or not I gain 'satisfaction' shouldn't matter, should it?"

"Killing you isn't going to accomplish anything at this point."

"Funny," Izaya replied flatly. "What changed your mind?"

"You can't live without me." An intake of breath. "And I can't live without you." He took a step back and looked into the eyes of the other in defiance. "We hate each other so much that, if one of us dies, we won't have any purpose to our lives." _You'd have gone_ nuts _without me._ _It was obvious, wasn't it? Well… I guess both of us couldn't have figured it out, huh?_

A lapse of silence passed as cool sweat trickled down from in between the informant's shoulder blades, and he sparingly thought of the heat and the blood that muddled his thoughts _._ A minute shaking of his head as he processed the blond's words with a narrowing of his eyes. "Seems like this whole fiasco hit you harder than I thought. And to think Shizu-chan actually started using his brain at some point."

"Maybe start responding with less vague sentences, eh, flea?"

"This is where social skills come to use, _brute_." He punctuated the slur by prodding the blond's sternum to push him back and give Izaya enough leeway to assess the room. "Ask the right questions and I'll give you not-so-vague answers, hmm~?"

A grumble came from Shizuo as he let himself get moved back. "Do you feel guilty about murdering someone?"

Izaya's grin was laced with dynamite as he cast a sidelong glance at the other. "Ding ding ding, we have a winner. And to think the great Orihara Izaya had such a thing as a conscience, is what you're thinking right now, ne?"

"Real fuckin' surprised, alright. The hell's gotten into you to feel guilty, huh?"

"I'll give it to you this way. Should an admirer of humans, a god above them, have the right to take away a life as an act of self-preservation?" He didn't wait for a reply as he gestured wildly, as if releasing all the pent-up energy without care for his audience. " _No_ , he doesn't. Going against my ideals makes me into a fool, which, by the way, I assumed was a title that only truly belonged to you." An accusatory finger was pointed in the blond's direction. "And here I am lowered to your tier, and you don't even have the common sense to restore balance by killing me."

The blond could feel a headache pulsating in his mind as he balled up his fists and slammed one of them into the wall near Izaya. "You know what flea, FUCK this balance bullshit!" He dug his fingernails into the concrete as he pulled back and threw the debris onto the floor, letting it slam and shatter into pieces to create its own crater as well. He took a step back. "FUCK this ideals, title, tier, balance shit! If I have to hear one more word coming from you about how you've stooped so low and how I need to rip your fucking throat out because of it, you can SHUT THE FUCK UP, 'CAUSE I'M UP TO HERE," he raised a hand up to his forehead and held it horizontally, before taking it off as he turned around and began to pace the room, arms flailing in an attempt to let off his built-up anger. "WITH YOUR DUMB PHILOSOPHICAL SHIT! WE'RE HERE TO _SURVIVE_ , YOU DUMB FUCK, DON'T YOU KNOW THAT?! HOW _STUPID_ CAN YOU FUCKING _BE_?! HOW ABOUT YOU TRY TO _THINK_ FOR ONCE INSTEAD OF RELYING ON THE SAME FUCKING IDEAS, THE SAME FUCKIN' TRICKS, 'CAUSE GUESS WHAT?" He sharply turned around and regarded the other with a half-mad look in his eyes.

"WE'RE NOT THE _SAME_ ANYMORE!" He yelled out, chest heaving.

During the rant, Izaya had grown still, expression falling into carefully calculated apathy. It was only when Shizuo reached the end did he flinch almost imperceptibly. "We're not the same," he echoed, quiet voice a complete juxtaposition to the blond's shout, "Are we?" A low, bitter laugh, before the raven decidedly faced away from the other to look upon the projection, which now featured the very start of his hypothermia-induced insanity.

With his outstretched hand, fingers invitingly splayed wide in order to accommodate for the other.

With that same hand, now encased in drying, crimson film, he extended his arm to Shizuo. A few beats passed uneventfully before he stated, "My arm's getting tired."

Shizuo's voice came out as a whisper - an inversion of the loud and angry one that was there just moments before. "... what are we shaking on?" He stared at the other blankly.

"Acknowledgement." Concise, simple, yet just as misleading as anything else he'd say.

"Yeah," the other said, a little louder this time as he walked over and took his hand, shaking it lightly. "I'll agree to that."

"Perfect." Once they parted, Izaya took notice that his shirt clung to his narrow frame in sweat - be it from the exertion or the increasingly prevalent heat being pumped into the room. He peeled it away from his bandages and over his head to wrap the damp fabric around his oozing palm.

His attention returned to the room, where the low audio and projection continued to play undeterred. Unlike his first cursory scan of the area, this time, he was quick to note that a panel by the door - which yawned open into darkness - had slid back to reveal a sheer box embedded into the wall. _What next?_ Upon closer inspection, he could make out the very obvious button in red poked out from the far side. There was an aperture - just large enough for one to slip his or her hand through - as well as the incredibly inviting gleam of a miniature guillotine at the entrance. The words inscribed in black were simple - ' _Press to exit at the expense of an arm. Any act viewed as malicious or delay will result in death due to heat.'_

Shizuo did the same, examining his environment and only _now_ taking in the smell of blood, as well as mild warmth running across his body. "Fuck."

"You're the obvious candidate," Izaya mentioned helpfully as he bent down to peer at the mechanism. "How do you feel about becoming an amputee, just like me?"

"'S this fuckin' _karma_ or something? Shit, might as well take both while you're at it." He huffed and rubbed his eyes.

"Fitting, ne?" He bit his lip, gaze settling onto the door and the hallway beyond. "I wouldn't hold my breath. They weren't keen on this happening to _me_ to start with, so I wouldn't expect they'd want to do the same to you."

"So what do you want me to do before we get burnt to a crisp?"

"I'd prefer 'cooked alive,'" Izaya amended and started for the door. "We have to see where the scent of blood is coming from, don't we?"

* * *

To put it in simple terms, it was disgusting.

Izaya always favored the cold to start with - at least, not when he's delusional because of it - so being forced into close confines in the sticky humidity and disconcerting warmth was quite unfavorable to say the least.

As he ran a hand along the adjacent wall to navigate the labyrinthine halls, he felt the growing flush in his cheeks escalate from uncomfortable to worrying. It didn't help that he couldn't hear anything beyond the lumbering steps of the protozoan behind him. The raven had the notion that Shizuo still didn't know what to make of the situation, as well as the 'friendly' handshake. _That was a nice touch, wasn't it? Geez. For all I know, he took it as a temporary truce._

He paused midstep.

 _Acknowledgment of what you've said. For once, you actually leave me with food for thought._

"Quit being such a slow-ass," the ever-present gruff voice complained.

"Ah, because navigating in pitch-black darkness is so easy. By all means, take the lead," Izaya retorted.

"Well, maybe take more than one step a fuckin' hour, would you?"

He stopped abruptly, causing the other to walk into him, and dropped his arm. "How about we stay _here_ then? You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?"

The grinding of teeth from the blond was followed by a sigh. " _Fine_ ," he hesitantly said. "You have a point."

And so, they continued to progress through. The pungent scent grew stronger, enough so that Izaya wrinkled his nose in distaste and felt bile eat away at his empty stomach. _Just like I assumed, the source is the showers._ They rounded the corner, and Izaya halted once again when his foot found itself in puddle of what he discerned was most likely _not_ water.

A sniff from the other. "It's…" Shizuo started, swallowing in order not to spill out his hollow contents. "It's blood…" He continued, a bit quieter this time.

"No kidding," Izaya agreed, retracting his bare foot and flattening himself to the wall in order to accommodate the other. "Why don't you go first?"

As the blond took his first step forward and felt the edge of his foot touch the pool of blood, he had second thoughts about the whole thing. Nonetheless, he pushed on, slowly-wavering determination coursing through his mind. The hallway widened out, and a few steps further into the room had his foot catching at a soft, rotting mass.

His eyes widened as his gag reflex acted up, threat quickly making way for bile. "Oh god, oh god," he repeated, taking a few steps back to recompose himself. "This is so fucked up, this is _so_ fucked up."

"Unless you want to sacrifice your arm, you'd need to pull his out," Izaya supplemented as he appeared at the other's shoulder. "Unless you want to drag the body."

"I…" he closed his eyes and looked away with a grimace. "I'll do it - I have to, but, just… Christ…"

"Hurry up now," Izaya cooed, relishing in the irony of the situation considering the other had just been complaining about their slow progress. "We haven't-"

A movement, a muffled grunt of surprise from Izaya as a pair of hands grappled him. There was the sound of two bodies hitting the wet ground in a struggle, before abruptly, the shuffling cut off.

"Oi, what the hell?" Shizuo winced before turning around. "Flea-"

A body lurched at him, grimy fingers reaching for his throat, but his honed reflexes knocked the man out by simply holding up a fist towards the attacker's chest. An annoyed sigh as the body crumpled, and Shizuo fixed his eyes towards where he _thought_ Izaya fell. "Flea?" Nothing.

The blond shoved the attacker roughly aside as he carefully took a few steps forward before a foot grazed what he assumed was one of Izaya's legs. "Wake up, bud."

No response. _Did he get knocked out?_

He tapped his foot several times before giving up and crouching down, hovering his hand while he chalked up a mental image in his head on how Izaya'd currently be splayed out. Eventually, he settled his hand down onto the other.

"Oi." A nudge.

A small beat past before the raven recoiled with a groan. " _What_ do you think you are touching?"

"Not your crotch, if you're wondering." A grin appeared on his face. "Or do you want me to?"

A disgruntled sound was made in the back of Izaya's throat as he sat up, clothes soaked liberally in blood. "Can't fool you for a second, can I? It was easy enough playing dead to divert the man's attention to you, but I _did_ hit my head on the way down, and yet you have the audacity to see through me." He sniffed, miffed.

"Grab my hand and I'll get you up. And I won't rip it off," he reassured, before adding in a deadpan, "Probably."

"How convincing." Izaya nonetheless obliged, holding on to the other's hand on his chest to be lifted up back to his feet. His prosthesis skidded on the slick ground, and his grip tightened minutely as he righted himself.

"So now I'm supposed to rip an arm out of a decaying _something_ , so that's all very _fun_ ," he emphasized in bitter sarcasm.

The heat wasn't doing the festering body any favors. Izaya released the other, taking a step back. "You could always substitute with your own arm. No one is stopping you~"

"I'm not _that_ stupid, flea." He turned around and took a few steps forward before feeling the decomposing _something_ again. It was proving difficult to compose himself enough to even touch the damn thing with his foot, much less having to feel for the arm with his _hand_.

"Any day now." Izaya turned and leaned his damp back against the other's, using his weight to lower him slightly.

"Fuck off," Shizuo growled, having calmed himself down enough so that he was able to place his hand on the body, afterwards slowly feeling the side of it while the stomach acid in his throat slowly crept up his throat.

His fingers closed over the limp arm, and he started to feel small tremors wrack his own.

 _You can do it, you can do it, you just have to…_

A tightening of the grip, followed by a sickening _pop_ as the arm disconnected from its socket, and something of a wince came from the blond.

"You make it seem so easy." Izaya slid off the other at the sound, shuddering inwardly as he walked into the hallway. This grotesque display of his monster strength made him morbidly curious if Shizuo would ever turn to _him_ to follow through with his threats of ripping the man to shreds - literally.

"Rotting human arms give off a pretty nice _smell_ , don't they?" The other said through clenched teeth as he stood up and turned out on his heel. "Ugh."

"Why don't you try washing off?" Izaya chirped innocently. _I have little doubt that they tampered with the shower systems._ He arched his back slightly in distaste towards the liquid that covered his back and matted his hair.

"In the dark? _Fuck_ that." He stepped over the unconscious body and extended his arm, walking forwards until he felt the surface of concrete.

"How do you think I used to bathe, hmm? No one is looking, so go ahead."

"I think I'd rather bathe with proper lighting, thanks," Shizuo grumbled.

"And when will that be?" Izaya retorted. _Take the bait._ "I doubt they care about our personal hygiene."

The blond bit his lip and sighed, placing the disembodied limb down next to the wall. "Taking my clothes off is gonna take too long," he mumbled as he felt his way along the wall to roughly where the shower spouts were. As gently as he could, he turned the rusted faucet, and scalding, viscous liquid began to pepper his hair, collect in his clothes.

 _Is this… ?_

One thing was for sure. It wasn't water.

Izaya couldn't see it, but he could certainly hear the crack of concrete and the spilling of a certain someone's contents.

Well away from the splash zone, Izaya could only entertain himself with educated guesses for so long. "Are you done?"

Shizuo's eyebrows twitched in irritation and he ground his teeth to force his primitive instinct of 'punch the flea in the face.' " _Yes, flea,_ " he angrily growled. "I'm _done._ You want a shower as _well_?"

Even though the other it's couldn't see it, Izaya dismissively waved his hand before retreating further into the hall. "No thank you."

"Figured."

He could feel the blood soaked in his hair, dripping down his face, absorbing in his clothes, and trickling down onto the floor to join the growing puddle. It felt disgusting - the smell was abhorrent, and he couldn't stand just how much the fucking thing _stuck_ to his skin. Nonetheless, he padded his way back after Izaya, picking the arm up on the way before he finally brought himself back to the dim illumination that could only serve as a spotlight.

Izaya turned to the blond, mouth parting in the start of a comment, before freezing where he stood.

It covered Shizuo from the roots of his browning hair to his bare feet, dripped from his eyelashes down his jaw, trailed elaborate patterns in tan skin, smeared in some places by uncomfortable fidgeting. It clung to every pore in his body, hung off his broad frame in damp clothes, jarred with the dull hazel eyes and flash of teeth from a mouth pulled into a scowl. It amassed in the form of a pale arm marred with scar tissue, sinew and bone peeking out from flesh and congealing liquid, fingers blackened from what could only have been frostbite curling in towards themselves, cracking and fissuring.

Just like a cake frosted so perfectly that not a single spec of it remained uncovered, Shizuo had slipped easily into the skin of a monster, where no trace of humanity could be seen beyond the gore.

' _WE'RE NOT THE_ SAME _ANYMORE!'_

That one sentence was ironic enough in this context that Izaya's lips twitched once.

It was _perfect_.

Anyone else would have been disturbed in this situation, with what the stifling heat, the semi-darkness, the blood, and the monster. Izaya?

He was _overjoyed._

His hands came together, one with a cut across the palm, the other sheathed in a cast, in a clap, disappointingly quiet due to his acknowledgment of his injuries. On the other hand, the effect was enough.

Another tremor of suppressed laughter. "Hey Shizu-chan~ Do you want to be friends?"

The other didn't skip a beat.

"Go to hell."

"You _are_ the embodiment of it, you kno-" He was caught off by a soft wheeze before he bit his lip to keep it from escalating further.

"I wish you could just fucking die already."

Izaya stepped closer to the other, his expression not unlike an insane man approaching a caged beast. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his neck, clearing a line of skin.

Shizuo leaned his forehead and bumped it into the other's.

"I _despise_ you, Izaya."

Izaya lifted his hand up to the other's cheek in remembrance of the cuts he had worn down before. "'My monster,' was it?" he mused.

"You're _one_ messed up son of a bitch, you know that?" The blond's eyes burned with hate.

 _Hate, and yet inaction._ "Hmph." His smile fell, before he took a step back and withdrew his touch. "You've changed enough that I suppose no one can own you, not even me."

"No one's gonna own _shit_ ," he countered while walking around the raven and staring at the hole where he should insert the arm. "Fuck, by the time we're dead," he looked at the limb and hesitated, before lifting it up, "Maybe you'd be halfway on realizing that," and placing it in.

The click of a button being pushed, the snap of a guillotine shearing an arm in half, and the whirr of a generator coming to life occurred in unison. Overhead lights flickered on, forcing the two to squint in the harsh brightness.

 _This is so fucking bright._ "Time to go, I guess." The blond didn't hesitate in beginning his movement towards the threshold of the hall. Red arrows were emblazoned across the back wall, pointing left. Without waiting for the other, he padded down the hall, and sure enough, another sign lay ahead at the fork.

"It wouldn't kill you to wait~" Izaya called out, having begun his mismatched shuffle after the other yet clearly couldn't make up for the other's long, fast stride.

Shizuo stopped and turned his head to the raven with a weak scowl on his face. "Waiting," he growled out.

"Good boy," he cooed, slowing down to a leisurely stroll before finally arriving right behind the blond.

"I'll snap that hunk of metal in half if you don't shut the fuck up." The other huffed as he turned around and continued walking in a more relaxed pace.

Izaya continued to proceed, running a bloodied hand across the familiar white walls and staining them in red. How much time had passed since he started exploring them? A week? More? It felt like much longer. He began to hum an obscure tune underneath his breath, whether out of idle musing or yet another way to annoy the short-tempered man.

A section of wall at the end of the hall had slid away, leading them into a large, stadium-esque room. Doors were embedded at even intervals, following the entire perimeter, with names on metallic plaques in varying languages and scriptures labelling each. Small panels either showed a green check-mark, red 'X,' or a yellow 'O.' A helpful sign in the center dictated, 'Waiting Rooms.'

"What next? It feels like we're in some sort of demented hospital," Izaya chirped, slowing down to read some of the names in scripts he recognized. "Nathan Reid, Umberto Martí, Alexei Mikhailov.… Oh, can't read this one. Do you happen to know Hindi?"

"Eh?" The blond was momentarily stunned by Izaya's question, looking at him like he was going more insane than he already was. "No, flea," he looked back at the plaques. "I don't fucking know Hindi."

"Figured. Ah, the uneducated minds of the twenty-first century. At least _I_ had the decency to pick up English and Russian." His tone was accusatory, as if he were appalled by the sheer notion of people not being trilingual.

"You know fuckin' _Latin_ too?" Shizuo rhetorically asked in irritation.

Tone gaining a lilt of chipperness, he replied nonetheless, "Ancient Greek as well. I can also read hieroglyphs, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Old Persian, Avestan… Quenya..." Izaya cracked a smile at the last one, biting his lip to keep it from growing into a laugh.

"Now you're just talking shit, Izaya."

"Oh, I didn't think you'd notice," he replied dryly, ceasing his movement once his eyes caught at a freshly killed body by the front of a door, which was conveniently marked with an 'X.' A neat bullet hole went through the side of the man's head, and it seemed he was trying to get _away_ from the door rather than towards it. "It seems like his grand escape plan didn't pan out."

The blond ground his teeth together in disgust as he averted his eyes upwards. "Fuck's sake…"

Izaya stopped again at two _very_ familiar names. "And here I was hoping we'd separate. Take a look." He took a step back along with a grand flourish at the larger-than-the-others plaque.

Shizuo furrowed his eyebrows and focused his vision only to see _Heiwajima Shizuo_ and _Orihara Izaya_ etched into large, golden Kanji on the plaque. His voice was infused with sheer disbelief and slight disgust. "You're fucking _kidding_ me, right?" He irately asked.

"Thrilled, are you now? I thought you would have started to enjoy my company after listening to my supposed one-sided conversations. Frankly, I'm hurt." He mimed cradling his heart, yet the grin on his face didn't play along with the charade.

As they conversed, the door began to slide open to reveal a sparsely-furnished room around the size of their solitary confinement one.

"Right," the blond began with a deadpan tone. "Because I _love_ sticking around you. I might consider being the dead guy next to our door instead."

"Now _I_ would be thrilled. By all means…" Izaya began to head into the room, and as soon as his foot passed the threshold, it began to slide shut. "Go ahead."

"I swear to…" Shizuo trailed off with a grumble as he picked up his face and jogged past the other to their confines.

The door softly clicked shut behind them, leaving the two to their own devices. In one corner was a toilet as well as a shower spout and drain. The adjacent one had a neat pile of clothes and two trays of 'food.' Next were two chairs with a table in between, as well as a chessboard and clock dictating 10 AM. Finally, two pistols hung from the walls with packets of ammunition swinging from the handles, with numbers labelling the stock and a note pinned off the side.

"Bathroom… clothes… _shit_ ," The last one was tinted with disgust. "Chess… and guns, apparently." Shizuo's eyes scanned the room over a few times, before he walked over to the shower sprout as he gave the dial a go while standing _next_ to what could be _another_ literal bloodbath. Luckily, however, it let out what seemed to be relatively clear water that splashed onto the stainless steel of the drain, leaving some drops on the front of his feet and legs.

"Now I'm disappointed." Izaya absentmindedly peeled the note from the board, which elegantly read in bold at the top - **A Game of Tag. Time - 12:00 PM.** He scanned the remainder of it before returning it to its place wordlessly. _This could wait._ He _did_ experimentally lift up the gun one-handed from its rack to point it at the nape of Shizuo's neck, thumbing the trigger as he had done none too long ago.

"I'm going to drown your unbearable face under this water if you don't shut it." His threat seemed to hold less seriousness to it than usual, as he turned his head to the other only to see the flea plotting to use him as target practice. "You know," he started. "I half-hope that thing has an actual bullet in it."

"Dart gun," Izaya clarified, staring down the barrel. "And from what I've read, filled with poison potent enough to kill you in ten minutes. That would give you enough time to rip my throat out, wouldn't it?"

"A lot more than enough," the other added.

"Bang." He imitated the imagined recoil by lifting his arm up. "A joke in bad taste. How long are you going to stand there like a wet dog?"

"Yeah, well, I have to get this fucking blood off me, so if you'd _mind_ ," he finished, but quickly made sure to tack on another absolutely necessary sentence to it. "Unless you want to watch the monster shower, don't you?" His frown turned into a grin. "I'm sure it turns the flea on."

The reply came without missing a beat and a pointed smirk to match Shizuo's as Izaya returned the pistol to its place. "Oh, I'm sure it does. Does that make you feel uncomfortable?"

The other's grin sharpened into a razor-like smile as he took his shirt off and let its blood-soaked contents slump to the floor next to the showers. "Not. At. All."

On different circumstances, perhaps the informant would have continued to goad the man despite his own apparent growing discomfort, yet now, all he did was roll his eyes, force one of the chairs to face away, and plop down to stretch his arms above him like a cat. Admitted defeat. "Let's just say I won't give you the satisfaction, ne?"

 _Worked perfectly,_ the other complimented himself as he continued to undress himself while keeping an eye on the other. After a while of shuffling and throwing, as well as blood-logged clothes hitting the floor, the sound of flowing water could be heard.

"Enjoying yourself?" Izaya commented offhandedly.

For a change of pace, Shizuo didn't respond with an insult. "The water's pretty warm."

"Peachy." He reached for the white king, turning it over between his grimy fingers and smudging red. "Now this may be a difficult question for you to answer, but have you ever played chess?"

The other stopped up and rubbed his forearm in thought. "Uh… a few times, in high school. Don't remember much of the rules though."

A long, loose sigh, as if he was exhaling his dread at what he was about to offer. "Care for a game? After we clean up, that is."

"… Sure?" The other hesitantly confirmed. "That's one way to pass the time."

* * *

Soon enough, the two, having showered and eaten, found themselves facing one-another over a table, with Izaya placidly explaining the rules with all the patience and clarity he had shown during their fishing adventure. If anything, he seemed more subdued than before, as if the simple routine of going over practiced information was enough to comfort him from the unfamiliarity of their situation.

That, and the series of revelations that he had forced into an abandoned corner of his mind were threatening to spill into his thoughts again. It didn't help that the subject of them sat across from him within an arm's reach.

"-and with all that said, the objective of the game, clearly, is to capture your opponent's king… Are you listening?"

A grumble. "Yeah, yeah, corner the king, checkmate, all that shit. I got it." In listening to everything that Izaya said, he had been strangely calm for the entirety of it, only drumming his fingers idly on the table occasionally.

Izaya turned the board around so that the black set would be his and the white would be Shizuo's. He leaned his cheek into a freshly-bandaged palm, smirking at the other. There was no way he'd lose. "You go first."

A dozen or so moves later, it seemed that Izaya's plan only had a little to go until it came to fruition. As opposed to the superficial insults tossed back and forth, the pair were relatively quiet, only breaking the silence to toss an occasional insult or profanity but otherwise focusing on a game that didn't matter.

Izaya prodded his pawn forward a square. "In the end," he mused aloud, "The pawn and the king go back into the same box."

"Yeah…" the other mumbled, taking his turn. _Only a matter of time before I lose. It doesn't matter though, I guess._

"Equality, ne?" Izaya lifted the king, pointing it at the other. "Everyone is equal in that they are human, but it simply goes downhill as you grow more specific."

"And what are _you_?" Shizuo inquisitively asked, as he raised an eyebrow while he looking at him with curiosity in his eyes.

"Does that matter to you?" he replied easily, prodding the blond with the piece. "Nothing does, ne? They would call you a fatalist."

He shrugged off the poke. "A fatalist?"

"Submissive to the fate." Izaya clarified, setting the king down right where it had been before and moving a knight instead.

A period of silence stretched as he considered his next move, before taking it. "Mhm. Guessing you're the total opposite, huh?"

Izaya leaned back in his seat, admiring the array of black and white. "Eternalism, presentism, fatalism. It all ties into one another, and yet humans find it in themselves to change and grow. Fascinating, really. And _you_ are the prime example of stagnation."

"Me?" The other growled out. "Me, of all people? Look who's talking, pal."

"What can I say?" His eyes narrowed slightly. "Your unpredictability and short-circuit has grown predictable."

"You've always been predictable, which is why it pisses me off that you never change what you're doing. What did _you_ do back then, huh? Wake up, make contracts, watch people, piss me off, then sleep?"

"Is that what you think I did?" Izaya scoffed, crossing his arms now, chess game forgotten. "Besides, wasn't it _you_ who yelled that we aren't the same anymore?"

After a period of silence, Shizuo said something that Izaya didn't expect him to say.

"You're right."

Izaya blinked, taking a short pause to recover.

"What?" He rhetorically asked. "You're right. We've _changed_ , for better or worse. There were moments where you didn't take the chance just to tell me that I'm a monster, or something like that. Yeah, you're still a flea, but both me and you've been affected by this whole thing."

His shoulders tensed slightly from underneath the thin fabric of his shirt. _...And wasn't I the one to shake his hand in acknowledgement?_ "I suppose it's difficult to stomach that someone dented my favorite toy." The words came out with practiced ease, even as his thoughts rejected it.

"Toy, huh?" Shizuo huffed a half-laugh as he smiled. "You really are waiting on that grand stage, huh? The day where you're in a position to get rid of me…"

"Maybe you really will kill me in the end."

* * *

And so the game continues, with the players drawn closer and closer towards the end.

Deceptively drawn linearly.

But nothing is quite so simple, as all threads get tangled.

And if you look closely into the heart of a man and the core of a monster, you can see a lingering change, however slight, has been made.


	16. What A Cyanide, Surprise

**We're back!**

 **This little break gave us a chance to work on something a little (a lot) different, which was quite refreshing all in all. Something for all of you to look forward to once WBTD is completed~**

 **Since our chapters have jumped up from 2/3k words to 7/8k words, we're considering extending our update rate by one to four days, so you can expect an update from a week to a week and a half depending on our rate. Since it's nearing the end of school terms, time is short and chock-full of studies, but we're working on the fic whenever we can! Good thing summer is coming up so this increase wouldn't really affect as much.**

 **Apologies for taking longer to update and reply to comments, though we appreciate all your feedback. It really gives us the motivation to continue writing and see this story to completion.**

 **What A Cyanide, Surprise.**

 **A game of tag!**

 _Each of the fifty contestants have two hours to make it from the starting point to the finishing point, the 'den.' Refer to the map._

 _However, of the fifty, only five will survive this procedure, as we have grown bored with you._

 _Points will be allocated to determine which five, according to the following:_

 **Tag:** one point

 **Knock-out:** two points

 **Kill:** four points

 _The darts we have given you are filled with a slow-acting poison, which should kill you in around ten minutes. If you get 'tagged' by the dart, make it to the den, and have enough points to advance, then you will receive the cure._

 _If the person you tag dies due to the poison, you get a total of five points. On the other hand, if you tag someone who has already been tagged and that person dies, the first person will get the four points for the kill._

 _The first five people to get twenty points and reach the den win._

 _Do not be late._

 _Do not kill anyone before the game starts, or you will be disqualified._

"Tag… knock-out…" Shizuo blinked at the last one. "Kill," he finished, the sound of his voice lowering at the last one. _I shouldn't be surprised_ , he bitterly thought, as he turned around and looked at their armory.

To hide his apprehension, Izaya bit his lip as though he were holding back a laugh. "Shizu-chan is out of his element now, isn't he? Forced to kill in order to survive." Pulling the paper away from Shizuo, he turned it over to assess the map, right down to the lake and festival clearing from their previous excursions.

What especially caught at his attention were the five somewhat-blurry photographs lining the bottom margin of the paper - all of faces he didn't recognize except for the one of the man next to him. ' _Tagging, knocking out, or killing any of these men will yield double the points.'_ He bit his lip once more as he studied the features of the others before crisply folding the note down the middle and tucking it into the cast.

With his gaze flitting back to Shizuo, he briefly wondered about notifying the other on the bounty on his head but decided against it. Perhaps Izaya would get lucky, or unlucky depending on how one perceives it, enough for someone to end Shizuo in his place.

The blond's tone of voice rang in amusement. "Hah? I thought you'd tell me I'd be _in_ the element, flea." Though he smiled, it was short-kept before it fell into the natural frown that he always wore on his face..

"I've tried so hard to get you to kill before, and yet it was the one thing you were so averse to, ne?" Izaya retorted in more of a ruminative fashion than anything else. His hair was still damp, collar of his shirt dark with water. It made involuntary shivers ripple across his spine, and he rolled his shoulders once to dismiss the feeling. "On the contrary, landing someone in a hospital isn't hard on your conscience."

An annoyed grunt came from the other as he walked over to the collection of guns and pouches of darts. "They're still alive by the time they come out," he bit back, with a little irritation present in it.

"Alive and traumatized." Izaya leaned back on the chess table, lifting the dirtied white king once more and idly knocking a few pieces down with it before finally downing the opposing king. _Checkmate._

"That's what happens when people try to fuck with me." The prospect of grabbing a needle gun and shooting - _killing_ someone with it, it made the bile creep up in his stomach. Nonetheless, he lifted one out of its holster and hesitantly examined it, from the smooth, sleek metal to the carefully engraved number, while dutifully keeping his finger off the trigger.

 _Nervous now, are we?_ Closing his hand over the chess piece, Izaya abruptly tossed it to the other with a helpful, "Think fast~"

Shizuo dropped the gun in his hands with a flinch, before he turned around and grabbed the piece, busting it apart into fine white crumbs as it made contact with his hand. He huffed and narrowed his eyes at the raven. "The hell's with you?" A question that did not serve much a purpose, but one which he asked anyways.

"Interesting to find out whether Shizu-chan values his own life over that of criminals," he drawled, brushing past the other to grab his own set. He tied the pouch through one of the belt loops in his pants and deposited the gun against the waistband. "Though we both know the answer to that, don't we? You'll lose more than just this game."

As he picked up his gun from the ground and grabbed the ammo, he rolled his eyes and walked towards Izaya. "I know," he plainly stated, clearly aware of the fact that if he wasn't going to kill, as if it was the easiest thing in the world to state, yet... in the back of his mind, he was nervous.

Afraid.

"I'll lose my life, too."

* * *

A horn went off, and without much fanfare, the doors slid back to reveal a serpentine stairway leading up.

Clicking the safety off the gun, Izaya was quick to react and, without waiting for the other, proceeded up the stairs. Already, he was devising a strategy to maximize the number of points he could get while minimizing the threat to his safety. Since he couldn't use his left hand as a support, his aim would be off for long distances, and so, he would have to get in close to drastically increase his accuracy.

There _was_ one problem though.

And it was tall and blond.

"We're going to separate," he stated, sparing a glimpse at the other.

Shizuo looked at his back curiously while he ruminated about the other's words, before coming to the conclusion of, "Fine with me," as he toted the gun upwards and steadied it in his grip.

It seemed the informant wasn't quite so satisfied with that answer. He expected a question regarding his intentions at the very least, but it appeared that the disconcerting flash of fear that came from Shizuo was enough for the protozoan's brain to handle.

 _It doesn't suit you, you know. Monsters aren't afraid of death, and neither should you be._ An exhale. _But I'll let it slide for the sake of interest. How unsettling it must be for you to become aware you're at the mercy of a creative group of psychopaths._

 _To be fair, going so far as to create an island in the spirit of revenge and entertainment takes the cake. I would have enjoyed observing this had I been on the other side._

The stairway began to narrow and ceiling to lower, ghosting against Izaya's hips as he continued to fluidly ascend. With his height and broadness, Shizuo wasn't half as graceful, his limbs knocking against the walls as he was forced to change his stance. After a period of silence, Izaya lagged slightly and made one more request, "Don't get in my way."

Shizuo growled. "What do you think I'm gonna do?"

A knowing grin. "You have a knack of finding me. I'd prefer discovering your fate at the finish line…"

Izaya trailed off as harsh artificial light made way for warm sunlight, the air heating considerably and thick with water vapor and tang of seawater. A few more steps had him standing at the top of what seemed to be a much larger version of a helipad - a flat, concrete, circular expanse with lines painted into the ground. Along the circumference were the exits of more stairways, yet it seemed they were one of the first to emerge.

The very edge wasn't quite so far away, yet it made Izaya's stomach plummet with vertigo. He'd always _loved_ heights, yet seeing the foamy surface of ocean broken by jutting, moss-colored rocks and boulders served to create vivid images in his head. Nonetheless, adrenaline seeped into his veins, and he found himself letting out a long, echoing whistle in appreciation. Further to his right, he could make out the island, liberally coated in evergreen trees and snaking with rivers leading into the lake. The area was stark with withering trees, and even from here, he could make out the dark forms of scavengers in search of carrion.

Zip lines connected the shoreline to the helipad, yet it seemed that caution was thrown to the wind with what the lack of harnesses. _Lovely._

That was problem number two.

Problem number three came in the form of two darts flitting past him, with his reflexive dodge on the moist, lichen-covered surface nearly sending him careening down to his untimely death.

Like insects rising from burrows in the ground, the weary gun-toting forms of people emerged from their respective stairways. Some chose to remain there; others, like Izaya, stood wide in the open. They might as well had dartboards painted onto their backs.

As for the minority that acted before anyone else could react, they either flung themselves onto the cables to slide down with the help of their pistols, or simply catapulted themselves off the side. _Pity._

Izaya ran and slid down to fall into a crouch in the nearest vacated stairway, the one adjacent to theirs. People continued to break for it and were fell, some jumping onto the ziplines only to be shot and sent disappearing into the salty depths, and others - the terrified or the intelligent - kept to their cover.

Shizuo uncomfortably shifted in his own stairwell, peering over the steel surface of steps as he examined the environment ahead of him. _Fuck_ , he internally swore, biting his lip and nearly drawing blood in the process.

 _Some people already gave up from the start, huh?_

Forcing back the worry climbing up his throat, he idly ran his hand across the smooth barrel, something so crude and inhumane packed in a nifty, ergonomic package of pins, plastic, and poison.

Hesitance ran through the veins of his arms as he lifted up the gun above the stairway and let his finger rest against the trigger. To shoot was to risk the chance of hitting someone and guaranteeing their end, thus earning points, or to not shoot, thus lowering the chances of _his_ survival. Shizuo swore inwardly to himself before pulling the trigger and feeling the mechanism of the weapon in his hand twist and turn, pull and push, releasing a bolt that shot out from the barrel.

Even in the midst of all the chaos, among the rumbling of footsteps and ziplining, Shizuo could physically _feel_ the impact of his own shot landing into one of the participants, as well as the half-scream that came from them. It send a chill down Shizuo's spine, one that he bit back down by violently grinding his teeth together.

 _Murderer_ , he bitterly thought, as his reflexes kicked in and his adrenaline coursed through his veins. A foot shot up from the steel as he leaped forwards, with the metal bending under the pressure before its structure collapsed with a _CRASH_. His feet kicked up dust with each footstep, and he could feel the piercing eyes from the ones smart enough to stay in their foxholes of defence, readying their guns up in unison to take down him and the rest of those who sought their luck in being the first to get out - or the first to die, rather.

Shizuo felt the dangerously close whizz of poison-tipped darts past his body, and luckily, however, decades worth of chases and switchblade-dodging honed his reflexes to the point that evading them was a matter of ease, and once the contestants figured that out, some of them gave up and switched to easier targets. They had a limited supply of darts, after all, and wasting them all on a high-value target that was currently fully focused on escaping and dodging would only mean a waste of their resources.

Once he got to the ziplines, the mechanism was quickly figured out in how it worked, and he latched onto it with his weapon. The moment he started getting away from the chaotic battlefield, he felt the ripple of a dart across the back of his shirt, making him flinch in surprise and sigh in relief as soon after he didn't have the feeling of venom coursing through him. _I'm alive_ , he repeated in his head as a mantra. _I'm alive. I'm not dead, I'm_ _ **alive.**_

Soon enough, cerulean water made way for coastline, and Shizuo dropped down onto the sun-warmed sand, taking a moment to glance back at the platform from which he had departed. Even from here, he could still hear the mix of noises that congregated into panic. Some contestants were even hit in the back of the head with darts, their eyes glazing over as their guns carried them to safety, before their bodies dropped and tumbled limply onto the ground, dead. It churned Shizuo's stomach to watch people die so casually in an environment like this.

None of them, however, were Izaya. He was stuck back there in his own hole - biding his time just like the rest. But what was he going to do, with just one useful hand? Shizuo broke the other after all, and more guilt crept up in the back of his mind at the prospect that Izaya wouldn't be able to escape - if he tried, he'd simply be shot to death. But it was too late to go back there and rescue him. He had to focus on… something… killing people?

 _God…_ He ran a hand through his bleached hair, the strands of which were slowly turning back into their natural, brown colour. _What am I going to do?_

He stared out at the morning sun, eyes fixating on the endless sea beyond him. Waves of baby-blue softly crashed against the yellow of the sand in front of him, a clash of colours that gave him some sort of comfort, comfort in the calm before the storm.

He idly balled his fist, staring into it as if the hardened skin stared back into him - his own soul, before his eyes flittered over to the gun. _This_ thing, was he really going to use it for the sole purpose of cold-blooded, poison-filled murder? Once more, it nearly sent him into rage, yet he kept his cool. On the outside, one could figure that there was nothing wrong, but inside, he was a _mess_ of emotions. Thrown into the fray to kill people for the pleasure of others… _How fucked is that, huh?_ He thought sourly, with a hint of dark humor. _But I guess there's nothing funny about this._

He turned on his heel, grinding his foot a bit deeper into the sand before making haste on moving forwards. There was no stopping now, or else he was going to die like a downed dog. His shoulders brushed past the trees as they shook due to the sheer force of his passing, and one last thought was given before he vanished into the cover of evergreen forestry.

 _Live or die._

* * *

The disappearance of Shizuo off the platform was enough for Izaya to grit his teeth, be it in relief or annoyance that none had managed to fell the beast, even with the bounty on his head. However, that emotion was short-lived as he was caught in his own predicament. Idly placing a hand on the coarse cast, he peered over the lip of the foxhole.

Now, all that filled the stillness of the air were the whistle of darts to the fallen to snag a few points and the moans and prayers of the hopeless.

A waiting game with a time-limit. A perfect combination.

Izaya counted the number of dead and dying. _Seven casualties, minimum. Ten to-be casualties… everyone here, like myself, should have at least that many points, making half._ He slid back down, cool sweat trickling down the side of his face as he readjusted his pistol. Smooth, cold gunmetal, the trigger glimmering faintly in sunlight and fluorescent alike. _We all have a decent chance of survival, especially if one member amongst those remaining is worth double the points._

Leaving the safety of the stairwell was akin to suicide.

Staying within the safety of the stairwell was also akin to suicide.

The informant was a man of great patience, a virtue necessary in any within his field. It made his games interesting, as time was all it took to wear away at the mind of another, to turn a white lie into loss, to allow all the pieces to fall perfectly into place just _begging_ to be demolished with one well-placed timebomb. However, he knew that patience alone wasn't enough to ensure that his heart would continue to beat within his chest.

With his pulse in his throat, Izaya felt himself smile.

 _It will work._

Confidence exuded from the raven, from the way he straightened with an injured hand placed against his hip, to the firm step that took him out into the open, to the gun he twirled around his finger before tucking smoothly into his waistband.

The single pause as those around him processed what was happening was enough for a multitude of others to take advantage of Izaya's distraction and spring out, sprinting hard towards the ziplines. After ducking around a couple darts that came his way before the others' attentions were drawn to the escapees, Izaya approached the edge and took a running leap, grabbing on hold to another person's leg with his good hand.

The jolt of a fall cut short was enough for him to wince, and the person trying to dislodge him wasn't doing any favors for his already faltering grip. A glance down at the undulating waves confirmed his desire to not plummet into an ocean with a metal leg and broken wrist, and so he tightened his hold.

The shore grew larger, the water beneath them turning into soft rippling sand, and the man he hitched a ride on let go, sending the pair sprawling onto the ground. Immediately, Izaya was up and reaching for the gun, only for it to become painfully apparent that he had lost it somewhere during their landing. Instead, he pulled out a dart from his pouch and hid it in his palm.

The man stood and brushed himself; judging by the frown on his face, it seemed his armament had also disappeared, leaving him vaguely peeved.

That would have been relieving had the man not been twice Izaya's height and weight. A flicker of recognition at the pale, curling hair and dark, predatory eyes confirmed that this was one of the targets worth double the points, and while the premise of having the remainder of the minimum filled up was inviting, the struggle to achieve it did not.

Izaya wouldn't get the chance to decide either way.

The hungry, appraising gaze was turned to him, and lips were pulled back into a smirk. In a voice that sounded as though phlegm permanently clogged his throat, he spoke something in a language Izaya didn't recognize, to which he replied cheekily, " _Speak any English?"_

The quick fists that came towards him were dodged by a hairsbreadth. The next attack aimed for his side was deflected with Izaya's arm, yet the sting of pain wasn't comparable to the foot burying in his chest and sending him stumbling a meter back. While the size and appearance was almost comparable to that of Shizuo's, unlike the brute, this man had the tact and grace of one well-versed in martial arts.

It wasn't blind rage - it was calculated malice.

But he was human, and human was familiar.

Languidly, Izaya coiled back up, gripping the dart between his grainy fingers, and struck. A hand rose up to cage his wrist, but before the other could counter, Izaya swept his foot underneath the man.

As one, they fell backwards into the water in a struggle to get on top. The ammunition was ripped from his grip, his throat shoved down to submerge his head in the shallow water, and the weight across his waist ensured any protest would be squelched.

Izaya couldn't reach his own darts, nor could he try to lessen the pressure on his windpipe or minimize the growing ache in his chest and tinted blackness of his vision. What he _could_ do was sneak his hand into his opponent's loose pouch, grasp a dart, and shove the needle inches into the blond's neck.

The man yelled loudly in the ever-so-easily-exploited surprise and slackened his grip, granting Izaya enough leeway to wiggle out from underneath him with a gasp to fill his lungs. However, it didn't seem to matter to him that the captive was now free, and the man, still processing what had happened, belatedly retracted the needle and cursed some more.

Watching the other with a grin, the informant noted the dark blood spilled down the length of the man's neck and the sluggishness that had already permeated the desperate pacing - it seemed striking so close to home accelerated the effect.

Moments later, balance was lost on the loose grains of sand and a heavy body struck against the floor, displaced matter billowing around in small clouds. The man clenched his hand into the ground as Izaya stepped closer and crouched down, smile dropping, jaw tightening. A wet laugh before a final, sluggish punch was aimed for Izaya; it faltered halfway through.

His eyes were still open.

With as much tenderness as a mother solacing a child, a thumb and forefinger tugged them shut.

* * *

There was no chirping of birds or croaks of animals to give him the vague sense of protection that he wanted. Even though the trees were most definitely alive, some large, some small, the only noise they produced was the light rustling of leaves against the wind. There was the running water flowing through its stream against the rocks and dirt, though nothing helped the paranoia slowly intensifying with each step taken, one that was very much rational - he had hoped that by show of acrobatics and dodging, people would be discouraged from hunting him, yet he had a suspicion…

Nonetheless, he kept his guard up at all times, holding the gun close to his chest as he made his way through the forest in strides. It was strange how there was no one who noticed him yet, or how there were no darts currently being shot at him, the feeling of only the cold air against his clothes and skin only further dragged his mind down. _One_ shot was all it took. One slice against his skin, no matter how thick it was, would spell doom.

The silence was abruptly cut off by another pair of footsteps - these ones were messy and stumbling, no attempt made to quiet them. A man appeared - an emaciated, shivering one who hugged his arms to his chest. His eyes were wide and impossibly large in their sockets, hollowed and fearful. His feet dragged to a stop once he caught sight of Shizuo and flinched, hard enough to send him slamming his shoulder into the tree.

" _Pl-please. Please, please, p-please,"_ the male stuttered, cowering.

Shizuo reciprocated the recoil at the sudden intrusion of someone else. The first thing he did was not try to shoot him, but rather say 'please' over and over again… ? _This guy,_ he started, staring the other in the eyes as he examined him. That look in his face… _This guy's gone off the deep end,_ he figured. Shizuo couldn't blame him after all that had happened.

"Oi," he called out in his guttural, smoker voice, taking a step backwards as he took his finger off the trigger, resting it against the guard instead. "Calm down."

" _Please,_ " he sobbed, face forced downward to the ground and away from Shizuo.

 _Tch._ "Oi," he called out again, a bit more irritated this time. "If you don't calm down I'm going to punch you in the fucking face," he mildly threatened, but he wasn't sure himself if he would go through with it.

At that, the newcomer's breath hitched slightly, but he held it in. Slowly, his eyes lifted back up, and for a moment, beyond the animalistic terror was a vague flicker of recognition.

"What the hell's your _problem_?" Shizuo growled, trying to keep himself from advancing towards the man. He knew that'd only lead to more problems. "Stop looking at me like that."

" _S-sorry,"_ was the shaky response, and the gaze dropped down once more. " _Sorry…"_ It seemed as though this man's vocabulary was restricted to those two words - 'sorry' and 'please.'

The blond grumbled in annoyance as he turned around and and continued his trek deeper into the forest, finger slipping back into the trigger and hand back onto the barrel. "And don't follow me," he added as a final comment, louder this time.

Whether it was in a fit of desperation or burst of hope, trembling grimy fingers reached for the dart gun hidden in his clothes, lifted the weapon to Shizuo's open back, and with little hesitation pulled the trigger.

The blond's eyes flickered in a moment of panic as he turned around and aimed the gun at the other, letting a dart loose as his finger reflexively pulled against the trigger. Shizuo crashed against the ground and ran his shoulder across the dirt as he saw the dart embed itself into the man's chest with a soft, yet to him, dazedly loud _thump_.

Face temporarily cleansed with shock, the stranger stared down at his chest. Still.

It only took a couple of seconds for it to crumble into terror as he ripped it out and flung it away like it had burned him, before firing a few more rounds in Shizuo's direction. None were remotely close to the target, and so, he simply threw away the gun and cradled his face in his hands.

Shizuo's brain took a while to process what just happened, but as his mind cleared away the fog covering his thoughts, he struggled to come to the conclusion of what he just did. The first time that he ever has done something that he swore in his life, that he would never...

 _I just killed someone._

Bony shoulders bounced up and down in silent sobs, gradually decreasing in intensity as the poison took effect, but he had enough energy to whisper, " _You killed me."_ His hands pulled away. " _You killed me. I'm dying,"_ he repeated, another shudder running through his body, a dark yellow liquid spreading through his pants.

 _No no no no no,_ Shizuo reiterated over and over again in his head, fervently trying to deny what just happened as he shakily got up to his feet, staring back at the man. _No, no, no._ Tremors shook through his spine, spreading to his limbs as his fight-or-flight instinct kicked into overdrive, turning and running in denial against the clear proof of what happened - a dying, wailing man living out his last moments.

There were no clear-cut, rational thoughts going through his mind, the only thing being the desire to _escape_ from this place - not just of what happened, but of this island as a whole, from these people, from the kidnappers.

Eventually, he got to a point where the only thing he could hear was the rapid beating of his heart, as he smashed into a tree and sent large pieces of it flying, before slumping down against it as he stared at the brown bark of another in front of him.

 _What the hell is wrong with me?_

The whistle of a dart aimed beyond him.

Shizuo's head jerked upwards only to see another person slump to the ground, a needle plunged into the side of their head, gun in his grip slipping to the ground. Bile crept up his throat in disgust, but he managed to keep it in, if only barely. The blond got up to his feet and quickly eyed his surroundings, grip on his armament tightening.

Another poisonous projectile, this time whistling towards him.

The rippling of air made for Shizuo jumping upwards onto a branch, partly overlooking the forest.

A poorly held-in giggle trickled from behind a tree before escalating into full-on familiar laughter.

The blond sighed as he dropped down from the branch. "So you're alive," he said, more of a statement than a question as he rounded the tree and saw the shape of a flea slink out from his cover. "I can't say I'm surprised."

"Look at you getting all sentimental. You could at least be grateful that I saved your life," he quipped. Compared to when Shizuo had last seen him, Izaya was disheveled, with stiff salt-crusted hair and livid hand-shaped bruises on his neck and arm. His clothes were ripped in places, and judging by his stance, it seemed any sort of movement was uncomfortable due to caught sand. His smile wasn't quite as sharp as either of them were used to. "Why so distracted, hmm~?"

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "More like you paid me back one." He inwardly bit his lip at the comment about him being distracted. He wasn't going to tell him about what happened back there, but a part of him figured that Izaya knew; he _always_ knew, the bastard.

"You jumped up several meters like a spooked cat at a dart that was deliberately aimed off the side," he added, leaning against a tree with arms crossed to his chest,

Repressing an irritated insult, he shifted from foot to foot as his eyes narrowed at the other, examining his features before moving back up to his face. "How many points?" He asked, going around Izaya's own question.

"Twenty-five." The number was spoken with ease, confidence, as if what it meant was lost upon him. "You?"

Shizuo opened his mouth slightly and moved to speak, but stopped up momentarily. His gaze turned downwards, the gun reciprocating the movement as well, barrel aimed at the dirt. With great hesitance, he continued. "Six… to ten."

The smile splitting his lips held no mirth. "You're doing better than I thought. How was your first kill, Shizu-chan? Disappointed I missed it."

Shizuo snapped his head back up to Izaya with a scowl pointing sharply downwards, one that bared his teeth. There was a sort of headache pulsating through his skull, one that resounded through his head painfully. "I wish someone shot you, flea."

"Likewise, brute." Turning his back to the blond, he stretched his arms over his head, rolling his shoulders. "I'm lagging behind the kidnappers if they're turning you into a monster much faster than I am. Suppose I have to try a little harder, ne?" He glanced over his shoulder at the other. His tone once again lacked the usual edge, be it from his own inner turmoil or simple apathy. "Though you're doing great all by yourself."

The familiar emotion of anger was pointed like a dagger towards the raven, with Shizuo digging the front of his feet into the ground to prevent himself - once more - from doing anything drastic. Letting his beast-like instincts take over would only _prove_ his point. So instead, he opted for biting back with his own retort.

"How many _humans_ have you killed?" He emphasized the 'humans' by jerking his head forwards very slightly, scowl turning upwards.

His muscles distinctly tightened underneath the thin damp fabric of his shirt. "Maa, maa~ No need to get so testy." It took embarrassingly long for him to force himself to unwind, yet the other could see the physical evidence of his guilt easily enough.

"I'm sure you found it _fun_ killing each and every one," Shizuo added, grin forming in place of the frown he had just before, as he took another step forwards towards the raven, using his height to his advantage. "Didn't you?"

Schooling his features into nonchalance, Izaya took his time turning around to face the blond. "Every second of it."

To Shizuo, every word of that sentence only meant that he took the bait that he set-up. His grin widened - almost maniacally, as he stepped back and nodded. "Right, right," he confirmed with a tone similar to that of the info broker's back in Ikebukuro - _Am I turning into the flea?_ He humorously thought, - "I getcha."

Izaya hummed in thought, processing this with an unimpressed quirk of his eyebrow. He lifted his hand up to hold either side of Shizuo's jaw, gaze trailing upwards from the disconcerting smirk of the other to his eyes. "You're losing it," he simpered.

Shizuo's grin fell back into a smile, eyebrows narrowing at the other as he returned the sentiment.

"Maybe, but so are you."

* * *

"Ne, Shizu-chan, do you like jokes?" Izaya walked ahead of the other, ducking every so often underneath low-hanging branches. Their previous conversation had deteriorated into steely silence, one Izaya endeavored to break with a more… light-hearted approach, to say the least. Aside from the direness of their situation and the events that had passed, the weather was pleasantly cool, with the occasional warm patches of light filtering in through the forest canopy.

A roll of the eyes came from the other, as he regarded the raven with curiosity in his eyes. _What's he planning now?_ "What else is new?" He asked, a question that roughly translated into Shizuo's way of saying 'sure, why not.'

"What do fungi need to grow?" He lifted a branch up and paused, waiting for the other with a small grin playing along his lips.

Shizuo raised an eyebrow. "What _do_ fungi need to grow?" He echoed the question back to him and awaited the reply.

"Mushroom. Get it?" Izaya proceeded to explain anyway, releasing the branch and allowing it to lightly thwack the other in the chest. "Much room."

The blond let out a sigh as he dipped his head down in disappointment. "This is one of the reasons why I hate you," he muttered, half-seriously.

"Fine, fine." He waved a hand dismissively, continuing to proceed. "Maybe you'll like this one: What did the elephant say to the naked Shizu-chan?"

Shizuo pinched the bridge of his nose. _Oh god, here we go._

"'How do you breathe through something so small?'" A snicker, and yet another tree bough came the blond's way. He bit his lip, watching the displaced pine needles float to the ground in the beginnings of his best pun yet.

Shizuo's body visibly depressed as he released a sigh, his hand reaching for the back of his neck. "These fucking branches are making my neck itchy, bastard."

 _Perfect._ "Are you going to make like a tree and leaf now~?" he purred, quite obviously enjoying himself with the series of bad jokes.

"We're in a _fore-_ " He cut himself off, grinding his teeth together to keep his composure. If he had to hear _another_ terrible quip… "I hope you hit your head on a branch."

"You don't like nature jokes?" he stated, exaggeratedly appalled.

"I don't like shit puns and I don't like _you_ ," he pointed out by jabbing a finger at him.

"Hmph." A sound typically made in annoyance crossed over into muffled laughter. "A beast and a human walk into a bar..."

Shizuo ran a hand down his face as a vein throbbed on his forehead. "What's the joke?" He impatiently asked, already expecting the answer.

 _Thwack._ "You."

The blond responded with a simple "I hate you."

"Come on, that was funny~" he lilted, preparing yet another attack with the help of his newfound companions.

Shizuo _dared_ not let a smirk take over his features. "You should be a stand-up comedian, Izaya."

Izaya didn't miss a beat. "Ah, a one-legged stand-up, ne~?"

"My bad, a _sit-down_." To _that_ Shizuo treated the other a cheeky grin.

The bough was released, and in a manner similar to a catapult, it smacked Shizuo right in his face. "You have a _terrible_ sense of humor, you know that?" He started to walk backwards, quirking an eyebrow at the blond. "You should stick to growling out my name and lobbing objects in my general direction."

The blond was too busy laughing to respond to being hit in the face by a branch, or to respond to Izaya in general. Once it subsided, he responded to the other's comment. "You asked for it."

"Says the protozoan too-" His next footstep was sent _through_ the ground, and while his balance was off due to the metal-and-flesh legs combination, he had sharp enough reflexes to shoot out his good hand and grasp the front of Shizuo's shirt to keep himself from tumbling backwards. A small dust cloud and dislodged fermenting leaves settled around them, revealing a pit large enough for a couple humans to easily fit into… that is, if not for the keen metallic prongs protruding from the ground, crusted with old blood and rust alike.

Izaya straightened against the other and placed his feet firmly underneath himself, peering down. "They have no tact," he commented.

Shizuo simply blinked at all the occurrences happening in such a short period of time. What he could draw from all of this, however, was that there were traps set around the island… this one being quite a menacing spike trap. Another thing he could draw was that Izaya came a hairsbreadth away from dying, and the _only_ thing that stopped his fall was the blond himself.

He bit his lip and shifted uncomfortably, before he took a breath and gave his own comment. "Right… uh, arm off shirt?"

Izaya's attention redirected to the male. "What~? Does it not strike your fancy?"

The blond felt _something_ go down his back. And that something was nothing but pure discomfort seeping through his skin and into his bones. "No," he responded harshly, before continuing, "But I'm sure it does _yours._ "

His mouth opened in the beginning of a retort, yet a foreign sound came to his ears, one that jarred with the cacophony of nature. Immediately, he released the other and took a few steps beyond the compromising pitfall, scanning for the source.

Shizuo let out a 'huh?' as he did the same. _What's going on_?

Before either of them could let out another response, the sudden pitter-patter of footsteps against the soft ground came quickly; feet crunching against evergreen fallen leaves and hushing between the grass, the attacking group came as one force, shouting foreign commands to each other in a language that neither Shizuo nor Izaya could understand. A hum of darts came their way, forcing them to dodge and dance between poisonous projectiles that would have easily spelt their end had it even scraped by their skin.

In the blink of an eye, the blond began his assault while the raven found himself taking all bets off as they both advanced forward - in a rush of adrenaline-pumped combat, Shizuo swiped at one of them as his attacker dodged, backing away before he turned around and swung his arm like a baseball bat. Unfortunately for the ambusher, his reflexes kicked into overdrive, jumping back before realizing where he landed, his last thoughts being cut off as a sharp, glistening spike drove its way through his cranium, various others puncturing and piercing his body, letting blood seep from the wounds as he let out his last choked sounds of pain. The flies could already be heard coming from the distance.

Shock ran down Shizuo's body and he could already feel the aftermath of combat affecting his psyche, the thoughts of _murderer, murderer,_ running wild in the back of his mind, yet the rush of combat blinded his thoughts - turning around and slamming his foot into another assailant, this time to their stomach, sending them flying into the air as blood came from their mouth before breaking apart a branch behind them, letting out a shrill yell of pain as they went into the air, not to be seen again.

Meanwhile, Izaya grappled with yet the third attacker. Even without a functional arm and hardly functional leg, he could still hold his own - but barely. A knee was shoved hard into his side, to which he retaliated by throwing a spray of dirt in the other's eyes to stun him and kick him off. A mistake. The distance gave the other man enough leeway and luck to latch on to the distinctly hollow metal and yank it away.

The raven barely had time to process what had happened when another fist came his way, and instinct took over. A smooth duck and hook to the side, shortly followed by a withdrawal of his gun. Then, feeling the assaulter stiffen at the cool press of the muzzle and mumble out a hardly comprehensible " _Wait_ ," Izaya made another error.

He hesitated.

With a shove at his wrist, the weapon was rammed out of his grip and sent tumbling into the foliage. Izaya grit his teeth, inwardly berating himself, as he felt his good arm pulled into a joint-lock.

With the other two taken care of, Shizuo took a momentary break to recuperate himself before snapping his head back to the other two, surprise overtaking his features as he forced back the throb of a headache. "Oi," he began, voice gruff towards the one holding Izaya down, "Let him go." The grip of his gun began to tremble.

Izaya's gaze flickered to his fleetingly before he bucked upwards in a futile attempt to throw the larger male off. The man showed no signs of loosening his grip, simply grinning up at Shizuo's indecision.

Shizuo swore in his mind, gun lifting up to the other man's chest as he began a countdown. "You have _three_ seconds, pal," he threatened, but he could feel the pistol waver oh-so-slightly in his hands.

"One." The man's hold tightened further, and Izaya visibly bit down on a groan as he gave one more attempt at escape. "Two." A free hand grabbed a fistful of the raven's hair, forcing his neck up to better showcase his expression. "..." Shizuo ground his teeth together, before taking a deep breath. "Three."

Time seemed to slow to a near-halt as Shizuo's trembling finger pulled on the trigger, the gun letting a dart loose as it sped past the thin air between the blond and the other two. It traversed in the blink of an eye, ripping past cloth as it stuck itself into the flesh of…

Izaya.

Once the man realized that the blond did indeed have the nerve to kill and that he was fortunate enough to not have that intent directed to _him_ , he was wise enough to jerk away from Izaya and run, leaving behind his fallen comrades.

The informant soundlessly drew himself up, rolling his sore arm, and pulled the dart from where it protruded at his side to deposit it next to him. As opposed to his usual pallor, his skin had turned ashen, a faint greenish hue starting to seep into his cheeks.

The blond took a shaky step back, throat constricting at what had just occurred in front of him. A part of him wanted to deny what happened, but most of him knew. _I… did I…_

"Izaya… ?"

A belated trickle of laughter as he drew his bangs up with dirt-crusted fingers. "Want an award?"

"The hell's wrong with you?" Discarding the gun, he growled out and closed the distance between the two. Once the prosthetic was found and propped underneath his armpit, he slid his other arm under the other's, lifting him up and over his shoulder. "Shit, what direction do we go in?"

"Ahaha! You killed me. I'm dying," he trilled, strangely cheerful about what could be his impending demise.

 _Shut up._ The blond's body began to move on its own, heading towards wherever direction it had to, and he hoped that it was the right one. Because if it wasn't...

"That's what he told you, ne? " He kicked his foot idly, a way to cover the small tremors clenching his muscles. " _Begged_ at your feet to let him live. He made the mistake of not turning tail at the sight of a beast."

His thought came to reality in a harsh whisper. "Shut _up_. I'm going to drop you if you don't shut up." _I've already killed two people already,_ he bitterly thought.

"What will I be now? Your third?" Cold sweat pooled at his back, and he inadvertently let out a shiver. "Already took an eighth of me. At least you have a _lovely_ metal troph…" He trailed off, breath hitching at the rancid bile that rose up in the back of his throat, be it from the speed of the brute or the throbbing of his head.

Shizuo's temper reached a boiling point, and his grip on the raven purposefully slipped. The other tumbled from his grip, slamming his back into the ground before his bony shoulders grinded in dirt and fermenting leaves.

That was all it took for his stomach to empty itself. He barely had enough time to tilt his head to the side as to not choke, and even after what little solid was expended, his ribcage continued to rattle in violent dry-heave. "Go on," he croaked, swiping at the front of his mouth. "What, five minutes left? Less? Watch me die, monster."

 _Watch you die, huh?_ He shifted from foot to foot, staring at the other with nothing but disgust. "You think I'm just going to sit here and give you the satisfaction?" His hands balled up into fists as one could feel the aura coming from him. "Fuck that. You know what what I'm gonna do instead?" Shizuo didn't wait for an answer as the distance between them closed to a minimum. His eyes flickered downwards to meet the raven's as his scowl deepened, dropping the prosthetic from his grip, it landing on the floor with a solid _thump._

"I'm gonna turn that five minutes into five seconds."

It took every ounce of energy for him to sit up and glare at Shizuo, daring him to go through with an empty threat. " _Bite_ me."

The blond cracked his fists, pulled back an arm, and sent it flying in his direction, contacting his chin before knocking his head up and into a tree in front of him. Shizuo reached forwards and closed his hand around the raven's windpipe to lift him up into the air and get good look at his bloodied face.

His hard hazel eyes were smoldering - burning, yet cold, the look of someone coiled to attack at one wrong move.

Izaya blinked.

 _He's finally going to kill me._

It was a sparing thought, one that filled him all at once with dread, anticipation, apprehension, and sick glee rolled up into one.

Among the maelstrom of emotion, Shizuo _almost_ missed it.

If it were anyone else, they would have.

But when you've gotten used to staring after the back of someone you've known for ten years, and when you're looking at their expression, facing them at such proximity …

Izaya's eyelashes dipped down, a curl of fear so evanescent that it disappeared as soon as he began to smirk. He licked his chapped lips. "Go on," he goaded once more, managing to control his voice into a soft purr over the sickness clogging his throat and hand pressing into bruises that had become omnipresent.

The shaking in Shizuo's hands came to a halt, and he hissed in a fit of sudden mercy, "Just what the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

His lungs loosed, and involuntarily, Izaya touched his fingertips to his sore jaw. "Ever…" As his body metabolized the toxins, his breathing gradually grew more labored, skin more bleached, veins more prominent, vision more blurred, and yet he had the energy to maintain that trademark grin. "Ever thought that…" His pulse was racing underneath Shizuo's hands. "Shizu-chan?"

The blond's breathing slowed down to a rate that was normal, and the hand holding him at death's door weakened, if only slightly. Seeing the face of his most hated enemy, dying right in front of him...

He let the other's foot touch the ground again, as his voice caught. "I'm… I'm here," he told him, a whisper of what it was like before.

Izaya sagged forward against the other, latching on to keep his balance. He mumbled something, something too soft or incoherent to be heard.

The other's eyes widened as he found himself letting the raven into his grasp, and before he knew it, Izaya was on his shoulder and the prosthetic was being carried with his other free arm as he navigated through the forestry in blinding speed. He wasn't going to let this happen. Even if he was a bastard, even if he was a scumbag, even if he was...

* * *

Orihara Izaya.

Even when he was half-delusional and choking on hate and pain alike, he was still in love with his own cowardice.

Too bad his only audience didn't get a chance to hear his confession.

" _Don't let me die."_


	17. Like A Daydream, Or A Fever

**Eheh... er... erm... so, the Shizuo and Izaya writer have been busy in their lives. Quite so. The Shizuo writer was preoccupied with friends while the Izaya writer was preoccupied with school AND friends. Updates might just become irregular from this point forward, but hey, it's exam month this month, so there's a good chance that schedules stabilize after all's said and done! Stay tuned in for the next chapter, folks.**

 **Like A Daydream, Or A Fever.**

Running - that's all that was on the blond's thoughts. Why was he running? _What_ was he running away from? Those thoughts entered his mind only once before being snuffed out accordingly. He dodged deftly between the brown bark of trees and the grey, green-tipped darts flying somewhere, anywhere, some past him and some towards others. His feet slammed against the earth with every step, a frenzy of movement that his mind couldn't catch up to. There was some _thing_ back there that grew, growing in the back of his mind.

It pounded, pounded, pounded, like a jackhammer, unrelenting and unstoppable, and yet he didn't have time to think on that. He didn't have the time to think of anything. There were no thoughts about killing, murder, whatnot - only to run, to _escape_ , from the fear of the unknown. His body swirled and coursed through itself with a charged-up emotion that even he couldn't understand. Perhaps he did, yet he didn't have the strength in himself to admit it; after all, why would he ever even submit to the thought that… that…

His shoulder slammed into a tree, sending a large chunk of it flying as he bit back his lip on letting out a yell - not one of pain, but of rage. He understood _nothing_ , and as time went on, the only thing he gained was more _nothing_.

Why? Why did he hesitate on ending it all? He had it so close, in his grasp, right in front of him… yet it slipped, and it fell. The one he hated the most showed the one expression that _everyone_ else, except only his brother had shown. Fear. He _feared_ him, or at least, he felt _scared_. Perhaps he always has, and he never decided on acting upon it - the emotion of fear. Maybe that's why he decided to spare his miserable life.

In the chaotic mess of his mind rummaging through his thoughts, it only took a fraction of a second for him to lose focus as he felt his foot step into leaves, and then into thin air. The adrenaline coursing through him spiked, and he could feel his heartbeat as if it was a ticking time bomb. To him, time slowed, and his first idea was that the spikes were going to ram through his leg and they'd be crippled there, doomed to die, yet his monster reflexes had saved him, escaping him from Death's grasp as he felt it drive through the side of his leg, tearing up the pants clothes. Rubble shot out from the concrete floor of the trap as he jumped back up, the side of his foot grazing the steel spike by the side, its sharpness drawing blood that trailed with him once he began to run again. With anger. With determination to live, to live another day.

 _I'm dying._

It was a thought that should have been whispered to himself in a mixture of apprehension, anticipation, and fear. Izaya didn't want to die, no, but with the poison addling his mind and dulling the feeling throughout the rest of his body, he could only so much as muse over the prospect with detachment. He was going to die - _so what?_

As Shizuo ran, tracks were worn into the ground, the underbrush trampled underneath feet pumping hard and fast and gracelessly. It startled woodland critters out of their hiding spots, scuttling away from the path of carnage, bringing a small smile to Izaya's face.

 _Interesting what you notice when on the brink of death._ He could start to feel his heart slow from the rapidity it had assumed once the venom was administered. With two minutes or so remaining, there was still hope.

Was there?

Without much fanfare, his thoughts turned to the man beneath him.

The blond bore the curious expression of resolve. Brows low, eyes focused, teeth bared, jaw tight with unspoken words. Was it directed to redress the wrong of shooting Izaya or simply not letting yet another person die? Could it be spurred by a selfish desire to not be in this deathtrap alone? Izaya doubted Shizuo was aware it wasn't just his terrible aim that brought on this chain reaction. Maybe he could torment him a little more...

Interestingly enough, he rejected the idea as soon as it had come. Was there a point if there was only a slight possibility that Izaya could observe the male's reactions?

What had Shizuo said about them being dependent on one another? It wasn't so bad a way to go if his death would lead to the monster's own demise, and besides, it was a noble wish for a human to validate his humanity by ending at the hands of a beast. Yet Shizuo had come to disprove him time and time again...

Questions and doubts only served to intensify a wave of nausea that turned his stomach over, coinciding with a particularly sharp turn of the brute, and he groaned softly in an attempt to alleviate the pain.

 _Focus_ , the blond berated himself inside his head. What was he going to accomplish by being so tightly wound up in thought? His breathing labored as he could feel the trickling of sweat down his forehead, back, in between his shoulder blades. _Don't fall_. Shizuo didn't want to succumb; he wasn't ready, he wasn't willing, and he sure as hell didn't want to let go of his grasp of the world. Everything… it was all too valuable to leave behind. Why should he give up to the embrace of death so easily, if there is still something worth biting and clawing your way out of for? That was his train of thought, and it only reaffirmed his previous motive.

Live.

 _Live, Izaya. Because, if you don't..._

Once again, he didn't want to admit it. But the truth was there - and _he_ was the one who explained it, too. One cannot work without the other. What is Shizuo without Izaya? _Nothing_ , he bitterly thought, yet there was a distinct minority thought, in the back of his mind. That, however, had yet to grow.

With every tick, the clock got ever-so-close to the date of death. A second of a minute, of a minute of a day, of a day of a month, of a month of a year, of a year of a decade. All it took was five minutes, and it was over. The blond didn't want that. For someone he hated, someone he _despised_ and vowed to kill so many times, it just wasn't so easy to let him go.

It was then that they broke into a clearing, where a sleek white tower curled up towards the sky. A table was by the gates with neat syringes filled with clear fluid laid across. Projected on the gate was a countdown and a scoreboard, detailing the survivors as per the number on their guns, as well as how many points each had amassed. Right next to it, there was a smaller list helpfully marked as "Top 5," with a single two-digit number and value of points beneath it.

Already, another sat at one of the benches displayed about, keeping to himself.

 _Did we make it?_ Shizuo repeated the mantra in his head, over and over as he slid by the table and quickly unlatched Izaya off him, supporting him with an arm under his shoulder. "Flea, I hope to God you're alive," he whispered in doing so.

His eyes were open and bloodshot, and the flicker of response lagged considerably. "I hope you know how to give someone a shot," he slurred, head lolling to the side as if his neck couldn't bear the weight of it.

 _The vein,_ Shizuo reminded himself, as he reached out for a syringe and grappled it more than grabbed it. _The vein in the arm._ His eyes flickered over to one of Izaya's arms - pale skin growing paler. He flipped the needle in his fingers shakily as he let the tip touch the distinct green lines going across his skin, while the male in question fought hard to retain consciousness.

Sharp metal poked into the other's veins, releasing a small spurt of blood as Shizuo's strength readjusted so that he could compress the plunger, letting the liquid flow freely. _This has to work._

"What are you so…" His dim gaze gradually lifted from the needle to meet the other's. "Worried about?"

Shizuo's lips twitched upwards as he faced the man that he said he hated.

Whom he despised so much.

Then the smile turned into a grin, and he broke into laughter - one filled with revitalized happiness pointed at such an odd reason, and with desperation, the creeping effects of this island's madness coming to bear on his mind so.

As the cure circulated through his blood, he could feel the symptoms start to ebb slightly as a step was taken away from the darkness. Some part of him had thought that perhaps the cure wasn't a cure at all, a practical joke played by the kidnappers at anyone foolish and desperate enough to live would agonize in his or her final moments.

And yet he largely doubted administering the cure came without a price, one that would have to wait as unseen hands tugged harder at his synapses to pull him into the safety of unconsciousness. However, for now, he allowed himself respite.

Izaya blinked at the other, and in his confusion, sleepily mimicked the grin.

Once the blond settled down, he raised his head up and ran a hand across his eyes to clear them of any minor debris that caught there while he was running through the forest. "Nothing," he said. "I wasn't worried about anything."

"Convincing," he smarmed, sagging forward once more. "I expect reparations for damages."

Shizuo raised an eyebrow, grin quickly falling into a neutral expression once more. "Damages?"

He counted them off. "My neck, leg, wrist, and now this. Maybe even my mind as well, ne?" His voice was growing softer, but he seemed determined not to pass out. "You bring misfortune to anyone around you, even with a bounty on your head."

The blond grumbled. It wasn't very comfortable to listen to someone list off major injuries that have been committed personally, and his mind… "You do the same to me, Iz-" He cut himself off when he heard the word 'bounty,' and took a moment to recollect his thoughts by blinking before continuing. "Bounty on my head? Eh?"

A soft sigh, as though he regretted bringing it up to start with. "Extra points for you in particular, brute."

The blond leaned back. "So _that_ explains why all those idiots tried to chase after me."

"Indeed," he trilled, abruptly pulling away from the other and nearly losing his balance. "Why that first man took a shot in the first place, why we were ambushed, all that nonsense…"

 _I… it was because of me?_

Belatedly, the scoreboard dinged and caught Izaya's attention as another number and total joined the winners - his, not Shizuo's. The other stranger there had glanced at them once throughout this exchange, and though his expression was inquisitive, he looked away. "You don't have enough points, do you, Shizu-chan?"

"Tch," he frowned, turning his head downwards. "That means I lost the 'game,' including everything related to it. Like my life."

"Scared?" Izaya inquired. He placed one foot in front of the other in a feeble attempt to walk in a straight line.

Shizuo took a deep breath and looked back up at the raven. "Are you scared that I'm going to die?"

A hint of amusement graced his features as he deflected the question. "Do you want me to be?" Unceremoniously, he plopped down onto a bench.

Undeterred by the reflection, the blond continued as he asked another one. "What're you gonna do when I'm gone?" he said, taking a step forward.

"Celebrate?" the raven quipped. A throb worked its way into his head, and the lull of sleep called upon him once more. Biting the inside of his cheek in an attempt to focus himself, he continued, "Continue surviving without you, most likely. My world doesn't end when you do."

"'I mean _something_ to you, don't I?" Shizuo sarcastically said, with a smile.

"Why do I get the impression you're searching for something that isn't there?" The comment wasn't directed particularly at Shizuo's statement but simply served as an observation.

"Hey, a guy has to spend his last moments living somehow, doesn't he?" While talking, Shizuo made his way over to a nearby bench, walking around it before taking a seat as he crossed a leg above the knee. "I'm not expecting you to say anything actually useful, though."

"If you want to live, just kill whoever shows up so that you win by default, ne?" Izaya deadpanned, laying down on his back to soothe his turning stomach. The beginnings of inexplicable anxiety graced his veins - perhaps yet another side-effect - but it wasn't anywhere strong enough for it to become a concern. Besides, with the drug coursing through his system and numbing his senses, he doubted he would be conscious enough to experience the brunt of it. "It would be quite..." A slow inhale in one final struggle. "The show… wouldn't it?"

"That's... I don't-hey, Izaya?" Shizuo blinked as he watched the other close his eyes shut and go limp, followed by the rise and fall of his chest as the blond got closer. "Izaya? Oi, you didn't pass out on me, did you?"

The lack of a response prompted the blond to walk over to the raven, and as a test, he poked the other's side with his foot. A flinch of a response, but nothing more besides that. From what he could tell, Izaya was sound asleep. _Damn, really now,_ he humored himself, a smirk making his way on his features as he took a step back. _Guess I can't blame you flea; you were at the edge of death there._

A flicker from the edge of his vision had him turning to observe a sickly man stumble his way over to the syringes. He paid Shizuo no mind as he tried reaching for one of the cures, and yet, with how his hands were trembling and clothes drenched in his own stomach's contents, it seemed that no amount of concentration would have him properly grasp the syringe.

The puzzle pieces came together in his mind. From what he could tell, you practically _needed_ another person to inject with the antidote, unless you were extraordinarily lucky or skilled that you weren't shot once during the whole endeavor. Shizuo chewed on his lip uncomfortably and sighed, before he decided to help the man. There was a good part of him that figured that, you know, most of the inhabitants on this island were likely scum _worse_ than Izaya, but he bet on the off-chance…

"Oi," he called out, as he reached the man. "You speak Japanese?"

The man responded with a jerk of his head. Not so much as spoke as understood, judging by the glimmer of recognition in his eyes beyond the thin film of white.

"Stay still," Shizuo practically ordered, grabbing a syringe from one of the many available.

He recoiled yet warily eyed the blonde. A gun hung clearly from his hip, ready to be drawn at any moment, but no move was made to threaten Shizuo.

As the blond readjusted his grip on the antidote, he looked the other in the eye. "I'm trying to help you, so don't even think about it," he said, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding while the syringe maneuvered into a vein, injecting the fluid with a clean press.

The stranger seemed vaguely shocked, as though he hadn't expected Shizuo's kindness especially in this death trap of a game. Momentarily, he was distracted by something beyond Shizuo.

He looked up from the empty syringe after it was done and raised an eyebrow. "What's-"

There was a ting, and yet another name appeared at the top five board. In the span of this short exchange, many others had disappeared as their lives were snuffed. With only around half an hour remaining, it seemed that, strangely enough, a large number still remained.

At any rate, the person that appeared was a woman that, without her costume, was discernable by long, dark hair that flowed from from red ribbons. The shrine maiden.

Shizuo turned on his heel and discarded the syringe as he examined the other. Her. It was _her_. _She's still alive…_ _but..._

Judging by the flatness of her expression, she didn't seem fazed nor concerned by Shizuo.

 _It's not like she can talk either way,_ he thought. The blond blinked as he looked up at the board, and a chill went down his spine, with the hair on his arms standing up. _Aren't you only supposed to have twenty points? Why does she have forty?_

The man behind him sputtered as a dart hit his neck, and another came sailing straight for Shizuo.

 _One_ , he mentally counted to himself, feet kicking off the floor as a cloud of dust erupted from it. _Two_ , he continued, landing back down as his eyes glanced over to the shrine maiden, irises filled with newly-found hate. _She's a fuckin' psycho_. _That's why._ _Everyone on this island is._

Briefly, her eyes flickered to the two on the benches - one seated up with his gun laid in his lap, watching on with mild interest, and the other asleep, hand hanging off the side. It was enough for major bells to go off - literally.

A three-tone chime rang across the island, similar to the type you'd hear in waiting rooms when they gather attention for an announcement. In the same monotone, a sentence was repeated in multifarious languages, before finally, in Japanese. "Due to recent developments, the five who will survive will be the five last standing."

The rush of movement could be felt everywhere - an aura of desperation quickly subsided into everyone present, even Shizuo himself. Clicks and whizzing of air quickly followed, with any ragtag alliance quickly falling apart like a house of cards blown away carelessly, toppling to the ground and ruining its entire structure. Two people coming towards the tower, upon hearing the exclamation, turned their guns on one another, their hesitance to take a life dropping to zero as they both pulled their triggers on each other, darts plunging into one another as they collectively realized that neither of them were going to make it.

Others had taken a more inhumane, brutal approach, resorting to their base instincts and functions as they punched, kicked and tore into each other. Blood, both pure and poisoned was spilled in a flight-or-fight instinct. From that sentence alone, chaos was invoked across the entire island.

There were no more alliances present, any and all crumbling to pieces. Piercing yells and screams could already be heard, as well as swearing from all sorts of languages. Shizuo, however, had only one thought on his mind.

 _Izaya._

The peaceful, sleeping body of an info broker laid calmly on his wooden bed, unknown to the dangers that posed currently, and the blond wondered why his first, instinctive thought went to him, and not himself. But he should've figured, should've _known_ that something was up, ever since in that moment, back then, he gave Izaya mercy.

Blood pumped to his brain, his muscles tightened, and his jaw clenched. Five, out of how many? How many people was he going to have to personally execute? The answer to that would be figured out after the smoke had cleared, and the only people standing remained…

Darts flew in all directions, grunts and cries sounding from flesh beating upon flesh or guns turned into bludgeons, bodies falling against the ground or rolling beyond the trees. Multiple beeps signified each death, a glaring reminder of the lives that would be lost.

A poison-tipped projectile flew at the body of the raven, and before his mind could even register it, the shot had gone in his hand instead - it now seeping out blood as he snapped his head to the one who shot it.

 _You..._

The wielder was cursing to himself, having reached for another dart yet realizing that his pouch had been emptied. Using the butt of the pistol like a club, he lunged towards Shizuo, yet it was nowhere as fast and precise as Izaya's attacks had been, and so it was facile dodging it.

 _How many people have I killed today?_

Something in his mind clicked off.

 _I'm sick of this._

The poison had been slow to act through his body, with his immune system being an extremely tough machine to break down, but given enough time, he was likely to succumb to its effects too. For now, however, his mind felt itself slowing down while his movements started back up.

 _I can't take this anymore._

 _Kill,_ he thought, but this time it wasn't reassurance to calm him down. _Kill,_ his mind repeated again. _Kill,_ it repeated, for the third time. _Kill kill kill kill,_ the mantra rang through his head, reverberating against his skull.

 _It wouldn't hurt to kill a few more. Just for some peace and quiet._

The hand that was shot clenched into a fist and the dart snapped in two as its metal tip dug itself deeper into his flesh. It didn't stop the arm from swinging and the fist to punch into the man's chest; not only into, but _through_.

 _They're all scumbags anyway._

The man's eyes twitched and his irises widened in shock as the blond blew a hole in his chest with enough strength to revert the lunge and send him flying back, spinning like a ragdoll as blood and bone alike spread across the environment.

The consciousness of Heiwajima Shizuo slipped, and in its stead took the form of rage. A battle began, not only in the real life but in his mind too, with the control of his rationale slowly losing itself. A bloody grin took over his- its features; a sick satisfaction in taking out his anger if not on the kidnappers, at least to the unfortunate others present here.

Some looked at it with fear. After all, a beast of unknown strength tearing into someone's body with one punch was quite the sight.

Wet warmth spread over its body, its limbs, its face, as hands grasped and wrenched apart anything they could grab at. It grew stiflingly hot and febrile, the daylight doing no favors to shield the horrors occurring in the shadow of a pale tower. And yet the monster continued to move in a graceless dance to the beeps signifying each death, fueled by a desire to simply let loose, a flame fanned by every trauma it met until it built up into this mania.

When there was nothing left to grab, it stood still among the carnage, chest heaving, breaths ragged, slowly realizing the full brunt of what it had done. Shakily, fingers tangled in hair dyed red, tugging with enough force against the pounding headache for tufts to break off.

 _No more of this._

 _Please._

 _Can't it just be over?_

 _End it._

 _End it all._

23 - 107 points.

It… he looked at the scoreboard and smiled.

"You killed me," he whispered, as his feet slumped forwards, one step at a time.

"I'm dying."

* * *

"What a strangely pleasant nightmare."

That was Izaya's first statement upon blinking up to a grassland of paper flowers, stretching beyond his field of view to where it ended in hazy whiteness. Applying any sort of pressure to the meticulously crafted wildflowers had them disintegrating into ash, drawn away by a breeze and into the equally gray sky. As if in mourning, shards of glass descended from the clouds, shattering around him in a spray, and yet he felt no telltale signs of injury.

He was lucid enough to note that he had both legs, and in yearning, he ran a hand along the warm flesh. Sensation was muted, most likely from his body recalling the numbness of the cure and echoing it into a side-effect induced dream.

The raven ran a hand through his hair, clean and silken, and admired the bleak landscape, all to himself. As he looked around him, he caught a glimpse of a rebellious patch of green and the familiar figure of the man who lay upon it, sound asleep. A juxtaposition of life and its absence.

Izaya, lost in his curiosity, found himself shifting towards Shizuo to observe the other. As soon as he sat down, a circle of ash billowed around him, not once touching the bed of life or the one who rested upon it. Like the real-life version, tousled bleached strands, the roots of which were dark brown, fell into Shizuo's closed eyes, cheeks tinted with warmth from an invisible sun, the blue glasses on his nose askew.

Perhaps it was the perspective or picture of calm that had him recoil slightly at how jarringly _wrong_ it looked. It was no expression Shizuo would make, and yet…

"What a disgustingly human expression for a monster."

Nonetheless, a small smile curved his lips as he noted the drool that had formed at the corners of Shizuo's mouth, and a hand involuntarily reached over, fingers stopping short.

For a moment, he was struck with the surreality of it all. Here he was, abducted from what he called home, stripped down of his throne and reputation, thrown into a begrudging truce with a monster, bearing new rough scars wrinkling his chest and a cast enclosing his wrist, lacking the lower half of his leg and an arguably sizable part of his sanity, experiencing the brunt of a slew of side-effects having been inadvertently poisoned by his enemy...

And right in front of him slept the man he hated for a decade, with their first words quickly devolving into a fight.

 _'I don't like him.'_

 _'Oh yeah~? Too bad. I thought you and I could have some fun'_

Then came the years of rivalry - framing Shizuo, getting him fired from jobs, finding ways to anger him, getting accustomed to hearing his name growled out, shortly followed by a convenience store object lobbed in his direction.

He remembered discovering the strangest things about the brute - how he always bought cans of tuna to feed the alleycats, even when he was short on money, or how he would pace back and forth in front of gift shops trying to figure out what to get for his brother. How he quite obviously struggled whenever he was around children, stumbling over his words, or how he once found a crumpled paper crane off the side of the road and glided it around, or how he sat by the edge of the river and stared into the water, or how he took peaceful walks by the park and pet any stray animals there, or how...

"What are you here for?" he drawled sardonically. Lightly, his fingertips ghosted over Shizuo's lips, feeling the warm puffs of breath, as though his touch would be enough to bring words to life. The edges of his fingers blackened and flaked off, turning into a swath of black marking the blond's skin.

It triggered a memory, a quote he had grown to both admire and resent, with how it greatly diminished the value of humans yet nicely simplified them - and ultimately, himself.

 _We are but dust and shadow._

Izaya didn't withdraw his hand.

...Or how he looked when he had patched up Izaya's chest, how content he had been with forest critters surrounding him, how he laughed genuinely, belching out the lyrics of the parody of a children's song.

"Looking for a thank-you?" He moved down to grasp the other's hand, pulling Shizuo's arm towards him. Again, his limb disintegrated to become a darkness sprawled along skin.

There was also his hideous, monstrous look of fury, of hatred, of self-loathing, his voice an animalistic snarl beyond anything humanity was capable of, his strength and nature that crushed anything in his path.

They were both hated, feared of, isolated from the rest, and maybe...

A bitter smile curved his lips. "Some sort of admission? Pouring my heart out to someone who might as well be dead?"

Shizuo hated him, and so, Izaya hated him in return. He had long since made the vow to destroy the beast in the most brutal way possible, and being forced to be around him, changing Izaya irrevocably in that _one_ instant… it only strengthened the desire.

Besides, one way or the other, it seemed he was finally getting close to the endgame.

There was no going back on that.

"I did promise you that I'd break you, didn't I?"

Too much had transpired, too many words had been exchanged, too many lies and bad blood sown between them for them to actually discover something _different_.

Though maybe, _maybe_ , if there were such a thing as second chances, if he would allow himself for just a second to indulge in the fantasy, if he finally acknowledged the minuscule shift in either of them…

Izaya interlocked their fingers, pressing his lips to the back of Shizuo's palm as blackness spread over his features, imprinting himself into the blond's figure.

"Hello," he began, almost as though he were whispering a secret. "I'm Orihara Izaya."

The dreamscape shattered, and Izaya woke up into a nightmare.

It took him several moments to gather his bearings. The bench had capsized, falling on top of the raven and pinning him underneath its weight. Pleasantly enough, feeling was restored, enough for him to feel the perpetual throb of pain permeating his body, intermingling with the unwanted anxiety that had his pulse accelerating beyond his control.

The distinctive tang of blood was in the air, and judging from the dampness in his legs, he must have been in the splash-zone. Confusion muddled his thoughts, a feeling he filed away until he escaped from his compromising position.

Wincing, he attempted to lift the wood away from him but only succeeded in moving it from his chest to his hips. A little more maneuvering and Izaya managed to wiggle free.

What he saw nearly had him keeling.

Disembodied limbs and bodies spread out before him, the blades of grass slathered in lifeblood and viscera, the gleam of fallen guns dulled underneath the red, all made harsh by the unperturbed glow of sunlight. Tearing his eyes away from the carnage towards the only moving figure, a tall, blond man clad in a crimson uniform was struggling towards the antidotes, feet staggering forward, away from the battlefield.

A man who in his dreams was so surrounded by life was now marked by death.

Slowly, Izaya stood, jaw slackening slightly and bile swallowed down. At some point, Izaya might have applauded the beast and shared his regrets at not having observed him lose it, and yet for that to actually happen…

He approached Shizuo, yet the blond gave him no acknowledgment as his hands slipped over the vials in feeble attempts to pick them up. Silently, Izaya gently grabbed the other's wrist, turning it over to expose the forearm, and used his sleeve to clear away a patch of skin at the crook of his elbow. "Look at you; you're a mess." His tone was light and thoughtful, reprimanding almost.

"This is…" The blond croaked out, as his head loosely swung over to meet Izaya's eyes. "Who I'm supposed to be, aren't I?"

He picked up the syringe, applying a slight pressure to expose a vein for him to poke the needle into it. "Yes," he stated simply, pressing down on the plunger.

"Aren't monsters supposed to die?" Shizuo asked, his voice slurring more and more with every sentence. "Why are you doing this?"

The now empty syringe was gently set down next to the others. "I wouldn't feel any satisfaction if you died right now." It sounded almost rehearsed. "Not with an audience of one."

"I thought…" The other took a deep breath. "I thought that you were all the audience you needed. Why are you lying?"

"Why do you care?" he retorted, continuing to use his sleeve to clean off the blood from his face. "Do you prefer me taking the opportunity to taunt you?"

"Why won't you kill me? Isn't this the perfect place? Bodies… blood… like a real monster."

" _Like_ a real monster," Izaya echoed, peering up at the other unflinchingly before attempting yet again at appeasing the other's incessant questioning with a deflect or an answer that didn't touch upon the truth. "Maybe I'm selfish enough to want to keep you around for my own survival?"

"Are you afraid of dying?"

"Believe it or not, I am." Once again, the words were airy, spoken without a care in the world, and Izaya pulled away to admire his work.

"You know…" Another breath. "I killed twenty people because of you. They wanted to kill you. So I killed them."

A small grin as he bit the inside of his cheek. "You fancy blaming everything on me? Why didn't you leave _me_ to die, hmm?"

"And hey…" Shizuo's vision dimmed ever-so-slightly, and it seemed like he completely ignored the other's question. "I enjoyed it. All those people… you must be happy, seeing me be like this."

His lips pulled back in a convincing flash of white. "Ecstatic, ne? You became the monster I sought for you to become, despite it not happening on my terms."

"Hey, Izaya…"

"Yes?"

"Am I a good person?"

With that, the blond shut his eyes and his body tumbled to the bloody grass.

* * *

"No! Don't kill me, please!"

Monster.

* * *

"Shizu-chan."

The blond grunted.

"I know you're awake. The least you could do is dignify me with a response."

"Now you're best buds with a mass murderer," the other bitterly growled out. Two pumps of ice-cold water sprayed across his forehead in response. "Fuck… off," he tacked on at the end.

There was a pause as the squeak of plastic against plastic sounded in the room, and the entire spray bottle's contents were poured onto Shizuo's face.

His eyes shot open and torso leaned forward as he eyed the raven angrily. "I'm _up_ ," he said, a threatening edge to his voice.

"Not a morning person, are you?" Izaya drawled. He reposed cross-legged next to Shizuo, the empty container hanging loosely between his fingers. His clothes were imprinted with drying blood from when he had moved the blond into the tower upon the helpful instruction of disembodied voices. "Then again, I would be irritable too if I slaughtered two dozen people, got poisoned, passed out, and then woke up to ice-water."

The blond's eyes narrowed at the other. " _My_ fuckin' white knight. Thanks for explaining the obvious, wouldn't have figured it out without you." If he was honest with himself, Shizuo didn't really know how to act after committing what was practically a massacre.

"You know me, Shizu-chan~ Always one to help." They were in a chamber of sorts, with hallways branching off at regular intervals - five, to be precise, one for each who made it past the previous stage, Izaya assumed. With only two being the last, it seemed the stunning architecture would be put to waste. Air-conditioners pumped the room with a tangible cold, rolling over his slim shoulders and down his back.

His breaths were easy, body relaxed, expression vaguely smug, yet it was so practiced that he might as well have been stone-faced. Seeing Shizuo fall into depravity might have inspired the informant to put on his act a little better, determined to continue playing the role of smart-ass for some semblance of normalcy.

The blond rubbed the back of his head, fingers getting caught in blobs of sticky, blood-crusted hair. "Five, n' there's only two of us…" he trailed off, not in the mood to finish the thought.

"Think about it. You did them all a favor rather than having to live through this game." If one looked closely enough, one could notice that beyond the hint of mocking sarcasm was an attempt at reassurance. Seeing Shizuo appear so dull and disinterested made an unfamiliar pang of _wrongness_ go through his chest, with eyes that had been so full of life now dim gold.

"Yeah, and I tore 'em to fucking pieces too. The shrine maiden, as well. I enjoyed it. Monster as can be, here." The blond stood up, body trembling a little as he leaned against a wall for temporary support.

Izaya mimicked the movement before flicking the other in the forehead. "Right about that, ne? At least it no longer puts us on even stance in that regard."

A grumble came from Shizuo. "Something like that."

Another flick, followed by a poke in his side.

From him came a more irritated "What?" that resounded from him.

"Nothing." Yet another probe, and he bit the inside of his cheek.

"Then why the _hell_ are you poking me?" Shizuo asked, backing away from Izaya a little as he stared him in the eyes.

He pursued with yet another jab, this time harder. "No reason."

The next time Izaya tried, Shizuo countered it with a push of a hand. "Could you fucking cut it out?"

"What~? Is it annoying?" he commented, cocking out a hip before lunging forward to sneak in a quick flick.

" _No,_ " Shizuo sarcastically said, emphasizing it with a tone of mock disbelief. "It can't possibly be."

Rather than poking him again, he ran his fingers along Shizuo's abdomen in an attempt to tickle him. The end does justify the means, after all.

Irritation rose in the back of the blond's mind, grinding his teeth together as he pushed back the hand again, more forcefully this time. "I don't _get_ you," he mumbled, his voice above a whisper as his eyes narrowed at the info broker. "There's always a reason why you do everything."

"Come on~" he goaded, backing away slightly to cross his arms disapprovingly.

Shizuo pinched the bridge of his nose, fingers going against the skin so hard he felt a little shaking go through them before he let go with a sigh. "Come on what?"

Seems like he would have to opt for the most likely method. "Come on me~"

Blink. Two blinks, actually. "Never…" he began, genuinely appalled by what Izaya was saying. "Have I ever met _anyone_ this fuckin' nutty."

Izaya gave him a thumbs up in approval. "There's the Shizu-chan I've come to know and hate. Shock is a lovely expression on you; did you know that?"

"Shock, huh…" The blond trailed off as he felt his vision blur again, eyes dimming in colour as the emotion in them sucked away.

Before the other knew it - and the blond could process what he had done himself - he wrapped his arms around the raven, head resting against his shoulder. Izaya stiffened, putting his hands against the other's chest in the beginnings of an attempt to shove him away, but Shizuo's next words quelled any rebellion.

"Promise me you'll kill me," he whispered.

Desperate.

"Please."


	18. Not Every Open Eye, Is Seeing

**We're back! After a long time coming, we're finally back. We're so sorry for that. Well, we can't really express sorry, can we? Uh... here's a double chapter! One's short, the other's the longest chapter we've written so far. Juicy too. Stay tuned, folks, we swear we won't do what a lot of authors do!**

 **Also, we're going to be getting rid of the prologue. Sorry for those who enjoyed it, but it sets the wrong tone for new readers.**

 **Not** **Every Open Eye, Is Seeing.**

In Izaya's line of work, it wasn't often that he was left in shock. Deceit became the ordinary, and human nature grew predictable. And yet, he was unsure whether it was discouraging that it was honesty that forced his tongue to dry up in his throat.

His hands slid off the other's shirt and dangled at his sides, limp. Unsure - and his uncertainty and hesitance was what surprised them the most. No, Izaya knew what to say, what to do. He would push away from the other, smirking, and simper, 'Of course, Shizu-chan. I won't go back on my promise to right the wrong of a monster like you living among humanity.' The words, like stubborn horses, reared back from his lips and festered, before ultimately dying altogether. He couldn't speak them for reasons he couldn't comprehend.

Despite himself, his mind drifted back to that strange dream, how warm and concrete the other's hand felt in his rather than slipping through his fingers like water as he imagined it would. It was this warmth that enveloped him now, those hands that crushed Izaya into Shizuo with a desperation he didn't understand. Vaguely, he could feel dull throbs of pain from the other's grip, but his attention was fixed to the quivering of the other.

Izaya's fingers twitched to life at his side. He thought of how his feeble efforts of consolation led to this situation, and perhaps the familiarity he sought to restore wouldn't… The more the thoughts turned over in his head, the more he couldn't find a way to explain away the urge to comfort Shizuo.

He remained still.

The blond clutched at the raven for another five seconds. Then he let go, taking in deep breaths that threatened to devolve into hyperventilation. He didn't look up - he was too occupied with a blank, dead mind to do so, too busy trying to pick up the pieces of himself back together. _The biggest mistake I made was letting what happened settle in._

Voices, both known and unknown circles his head, whispering the words he knew so well, but they stung, they stung so hard as shudders crawled along his spine, stretching out into his limbs. Murderer, they whispered, monster. They piled on, one after another, getting louder and louder and louder-

"Fuck," he hissed, gritting his teeth. " _God_ , fuck, fuck!" The blond held a hand to his head as he growled. "My head feels like it's about to pop like a grape." He looked up at Izaya, a deep frown carved on Shizuo's face. "Whatever, let's-" His torso twitched. "Let's just move on."

"Eh~?" Whatever surprise or emotion left-over had become a small peculiar grin, the type he made either when he was plotting or when he was trying hard to maintain the mask of smug nonchalance. "How pathetic, Shizu-chan." There was no particular emphasis or acid laced into his tone, simply the clarity of a fact.

The blonde stared silently at the raven for a few seconds, eyes piercing through Izaya's. "Fuck you," he half-whispered, before moving forward into one of the halls as he roughly brushed past the other.

"The ever-so-intelligent reply, ne?" A slight throb of pain welled up at the movement, but he nonetheless pursued the other and firmly planted himself in Shizuo's path. "The sooner you listen to what's in between your ears and accept yourself for what you are, the less frequently your drama-queen episodes will occur." And there it was, the tightness in his eyes betraying the anger broiling underneath the surface.

Shizuo made no movements for a while, seeing if the other would back down. He didn't. The blond's hands balled into fists. "Move," he threatened, voice low and hollow. All the while the voices kept taunting him, while his patience was rapidly dwindling.

His tone only served to make Izaya's grin grow wider, and his hip jutted out as he crossed his arms resolutely. "Ironic that the one who does the chasing is the one who is running away. But…" Izaya stepped aside, gesturing at the hall grandly. "By all means, go ahead."

Shizuo watched the other - _Look into my eyes and you'll know the answer._ \- for a second or two before he moved forward wordlessly. On all fronts in the blond's mind, he was struggling - it felt like the man's sanity was on the rope's edge of slipping, somehow barely able to keep himself afloat.

Izaya's gaze followed him, and the raven simply shook his head and chuckled underneath his breath. "You want peace and closure, Shizu-chan? Don't hold your breath." Inexplicably, watching Shizuo floundering about so desperately in denial frustrated him, as the truth dangled right before him. "Monster."

The blond's lips upturned into a false smile.

"Don't I know it."

* * *

The voice that had greeted Izaya when he first entered the tower dragging an unconscious Shizuo behind him relayed simple instructions.

" _Each hall belongs to a single contestant. As you progress within this tower, you will notice that you will slowly be deprived of oxygen. To survive this, we only have a single rule - do not stop moving. Any violation of it will speed up the rate at which the oxygen is depleted. Symptoms you will face include light-headedness, coughing, confusion, shortness of breath, sweating, wheezing, cyanosis, and increased heart-rate. Do not worry; experiencing any of these is completely normal, and only 90% of our visitors have faced more severe symptoms, which include fainting, seizures, cessation of brain reflexes, and finally brain death."_

It was those simple instructions that had spurred Izaya a different hall to make his way through the labyrinth. At times, it would narrow just so that he would have to hold his breath and force himself through a crack. At others, he would have to crouch down and crawl, shimmying through an opening only for the floor to turn into a steep set of stairs that would leave him breathless and sweaty. The worst was when he would come across a dead end and would have to backtrack, dragging his useless leg behind himself.

How long had he waited for Shizuo to wake up? Two hours? More, if the rapidly thinning air was any indication. It didn't help that the alleged maze was designed to disorient its victims just so that any basic strategy wouldn't work. A hoarse cough worked its way up his throat, and while he wheezed in an attempt to draw air into his lungs, his feet caught on one another, ankle spraining, and the world blurred together as he fell, rolling down, down, down.

Abruptly, his descent was halted by his body slamming into a wall.

He remained there, still, processing the intermingling pain and weakness.

Ultimately, it was useless.

Not just his circulating thoughts in an attempt to understand _why_ or him urging his body to _move_ , but all the futile struggling for survival, from the day he had awoken on a truck with Shizuo wrapped in chains like a present bound by ribbon. They weren't _here_ to build their determination on the fact that where is life, there is hope. Rather, what better way was there to destroy someone by exploiting their dependency on another, by forcing them to acknowledge fear?

"Didn't you know?" A mutter, yet Izaya knew it would be heard by ears he couldn't see. He imagined that these words would be recorded and contemplated upon. His head lolled upwards, eyes squinting from the harshness of the light. "Fear makes excellent puppet strings."

A sound had him lazily turning his gaze to the side, and he watched as a long pair of legs approached. Practicality told him that this person wasn't the blond, and yet his foggy mind already gave the blurry figure the familiar face of Shizuo. When the stranger knelt by him, Izaya confirmed that it wasn't his monster by the lack of bleached hair, but he smirked as though he were greeting an old

* * *

His body felt cold, perhaps to go as far as to call it dead. There was no grace in his movements, denting the walls with shoulder brushes or bangs with his knuckles- the self-proclaimed monster didn't mind, he _wished_ it hurt, but it didn't. He wished he could feel so much excruciating pain for what he did, for the lives he took, for Izaya being absolutely, completely correct. But his body was nigh unbreakable, and so he suffered its curse.

Then again, who said it had to be physical?

The blond noticed how his breaths were getting forcibly shorter, and at first passed it off as a hallucination, but it very much became apparent as to how _real_ it was. _Air's running out,_ he thought _Maybe I should stay here_ , a part of him tempted, and what was alarming was that he didn't immediately brush it away. It really was tempting, to stay there and let death embrace him, a selfish desire for some redemption of his sins, but he knew it would all be for naught.

So he continued, pace picking up even as his body and mind were completely drained of energy and motivation. It took a while for him to find something that wasn't more walls, corners, dead-ends. Not that he was particularly pleased to see an exit from the strangling oxygen supply, but his body was still engaged in some form of fight-or-flight mode.

A door, and through that door, a room. Sealed off from the world, with only a single, dangling lightbulb from above illuminating a chair and a table. On the table was a chess board - the same one Shizuo and Izaya had back then, dirty with blood and grime on the white pieces. In front of it was a tablet-like device with a screen displayed on it.

One half of it was simply a simulation of a chess game, probably the one he was probably going to have right here.

The other displayed Izaya.

* * *

 _Eh? Still alive._

Izaya coughed in what could have been a laugh, yet metal pinching his head into place kept the harsh sound from lilting into the comfort of laughter.

 _A miracle._

The sardonicism in his thoughts didn't surprise him. He was getting a little cocky in assuming they wouldn't let him die, not until they have driven him to the point where he would pull the trigger himself. His eyes slid open - or well, his left eye, for the right was forced open by metal prongs. It was already tearing to sate the dryness, and a tiny petty part of him sparked in irritation that the first tears shed throughout this entire ordeal were beyond his own control.

Right above his right eye lay a dropper filled with what he assumed to be acid, most likely diluted for whoever engineered this to take their time and extend the pain. The rock he was chained to was inclined, just so that he was hanging from his left arm and leg and had perfect line of sight of his right hand, dipped into a tub of lukewarm water. Wire ensnared his wrist, the skin around it a blotchy irritated red as barbs pressed into it. Any movement on his part would allow the metal to tear the delicate skin open so that he could bleed freely.

It seemed they wouldn't be beyond blinding him and allowing him to faint due to blood loss.

He rattled the chains in an attempt to grow comfortable, but bits of jagged rock continued to cut into his spine. His breath hitched in his throat as he focused back on the dropper, chest compressing in a rising panic, yet all at once, Izaya realized he was alone.

That meant someone must be watching him, and there was a chance that someone was Shizuo.

* * *

He had already settled down onto the chair, examining his surroundings carefully. While it appeared the physical board would be just for himself, the virtual one would be for his opponent. A button on the screen helpfully declared to end the turn, and by it lay a timer displaying 00:00.

Shizuo tried not to focus on Izaya, the contraption he was in, the _state_ he was in, and God forbid the state he was going to _be_ in. He really tried. His eyes darted against the display, thoughts souring as he took a deep breath. _Couldn't have expected anything better_ , he bitterly humored. _Who makes these things?_

"Take a long look, Heiwajima-san. What happens to Orihara-san will be your fault." That familiar placid voice, as deep and rich and smooth like molasses as it was without any effects.

"I know," the blond said, shifting in his seat as his eyes scanned the board, each and every piece, his own white pieces in dried blood, and the other's black pieces, menacing. "You don't need to explain." _I just have to win this. I've failed at everything else, I can't fail at this. Just this once._

"While you must be under the impression that losing will force acid into Orihara-san's eyes, you are mistaken. Rather, each piece you lose will correspond to one drop - in total fifteen, as the king isn't lost as a piece. I will prioritize capturing your pieces rather than winning the game in order to extend Orihara-san's suffering, and that will provide you an advantage. If you win-"

 _Like hell I will._

"-Orihara-san will receive professional medical attention, and both of you will be given a two day break to rest." He could hear the smile in his tone. "Think of it as a weekend on an island resort. If you lose, you will be reunited with the man you've come to hate an hour from the end of the game, but as a penalty, Orihara-san will receive five drops."

Shizuo crossed his arms and looked at his pieces once again, considering his options. He was tempted to go back on his thought from before. _Five drops. Fifteen drops. Medical attention._

His fingers wrapped around a pawn.  
 _I_ have _to try._

… _Right?_

" _Shizu-chan?"_ Izaya's voice came through the tablet in a similar fashion to the kidnapper's, although his had the ever-so-slight strain. A clank of chains as he shifted in an attempt to crane his neck towards the camera.

The white pawn clicked against the table. Two steps forward.

An almost indecipherable mutter came from the informant, but he continued, louder, " _Whatever disgusting worry you feel towards me is unwarranted, brute. I've handled worse."_

So did the white pawn move, the black pawn did too.

" _Do what you must."_

The battlefield began to come alive as pawns moved forwards.

A man who fought his own sanity, fighting so his most hated rival wasn't blinded by acid.

Shizuo laughed, grabbing a knight and moving it forward.

 _I'm going to lose, aren't I?_

The game continued, a glob of liquid piercing the air, falling down, down, down.

 _Izaya._

 _I know you hate pity, but..._

The informant was tough; acid was made to chew through toughness.

 _Fuck._

Another drop, another piece fallen.

He knew where this game was going to go. The kidnapper fooled him with the illusion of victory.

 _As if I'm going to win this._

The king moved forward.

 _You know… I think..._

But his enemy wasn't focused on the king, yet the blond threw away all of his defenses in reckless abandon. The water in the tub turned pink.

 _I think the moment we got put on that truck…_

He forced the king into the enemy lines.

 _From the moment we got out of Japan…_

Checkmate.

 _We were… we..._

The kidnapper must have said something, but it was lost in his victory music made through another person's screams.

 _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

Shizuo covered his ears and looked down, eyes shut tight. Hear no evil, see no evil.

…

…

 **...**

When the hour was up, a snap of chains crackled through the air, and without anything to hold the raven up, he fell to the ground face-down - limp and pale and still as death. The tub was knocked over, allowing the red water to pool around him and soak through his clothes, but even then, he did not stir, his chest did not rattle in an attempt to cough or laugh. On Shizuo's side, a wall panel slid open.

The blond eventually got up, kicking the chair back as he grit his teeth. _The one thing I was supposed to do_ , he thought, looking towards the panel while walking towards it. _The_ one _thing_. He looked at the lever and pulled it. _And I fucking failed._

The metal door on the other side of the room creaked open slowly, revealing a man on the other side of the room, a slab of jagged rock and machinery in the center, a pool of red off the side. Shizuo knew instantly who it was as he walked over and looked at him. "You look practically dead," the blond commented, his voice devoid of emotion.

A pause of silence before Izaya twitched. "What? No kiss to wake the Sleeping Beauty from the spell?" There was no inflection in his tone, nothing except the way a once-smooth sound distorted over a raw throat. His head turned to the side, yet his eye remained hidden underneath a fringe of wet hair.

Shizuo leaned against the doorway, facial expression blank. "At least that had a happy ending. This doesn't."

"Eh? Killjoy." A soft grunt as he lifted himself up on his forearms and rolled onto his back. "But Shizu-chan is right. Besides, I doubt I qualify as _beautiful._ Too skinny, too scarred…" Izaya lifted his right arm, watching where the wire pinched in and leaked a dilute red, before tugging lightly at a wet strand of hair. "Hair too long and messy, the small fact that I'm missing a leg…" A couple beats filled with harsh breathing, his chest trembling like the motion pained him. "You know, Shizu-chan, what happens when acid gets in your eye? Redness, if it's minor, but in my case, the cornea bleaches and turns white. Imagine how attractive that looks." Being petty and superficial worked better than acknowledging the throbbing weakness in his body and fire in his eye and wrist. Acknowledging that not only was he a cripple, but he was now blind in one eye.

The need for nicotine was strong. Shizuo wanted something to distract his mind so that he wouldn't have to look at him anymore, but he simply _couldn't_ tear his eyes away from the decaying body of the informant. "I can imagine," he said in deadpan sarcasm, not bothering to give any apologies. They meant _nothing_ to the other. His fingers twirled around the frame of the doorway, fingernails dragging against the impossibly durable metal as he examined Izaya head-to-toe. "What's the next step in your 'master' plan, anyway."

"After this victory?" A harsh laugh as he drew himself up. His eye had swollen shut in a livid red. Tears continued to leak from it steadily in futile attempts to wash away the acid. "I could say that I'm satisfied. No need for any plans."

"...Right." The other leaned off from one side of the doorway onto the other, crossing his arms. "I'll wait for you to get up." He tried not to pay any mind to the stream of liquid, much like he didn't try to pay mind to much of anything. He repeated a mantra to himself - _Don't let your emotions settle in._

His breath continued to stutter, as though the air was tripping over itself as it left his mouth. _It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts ithurtsithurtsithurts._ It was as though he were drowning, yet it wasn't cold crisp water filling his lungs; no, it was a knot of pain and panic that had his vision blurring, his fingers clenching over air, his hand brushing away the moisture that pooled at his eyes as his lips moved in muttered curses. Shizuo wouldn't notice. It was dark, and the tears could be explained away as the body's natural response. The sigh that came did little to relieve the tension, but it did allow him to reply. "And here I thought the prince so eager to grace a wall of thorns to save the princess would at least offer to help."

"I know you don't want me to get you up." A short, barely suppressed flinch from the other. "I know you don't want my pity and I _know_ you don't want my help. Stop trying to make me feel bad." Truth be told, he felt absolutely terrible, but now was not the time for honesty between the two. Nor was it ever.

"You've finally caught on," he marveled as he placed his feet beneath him in preparation to stand. One flesh, one metal. He couldn't use either of his hands to help, with one bearing a broken wrist and the other wrapped in wire. During the whole encounter, he had tried not to struggle or flinch lest the material dig in, but it seemed his efforts were in vain, and the results were blood loss and light-headedness. Nonetheless, he pushed off of it and rose, yet with water coating the ground, his metal foot could find no traction and sent him teetering back to where he started, only with bruises on his knees to show for it.

He curled inward sharply as if he had been punched in the stomach, and flecks of red splattered onto his hand as he coughed - he had bit the inside of his cheek, hard enough for it to bleed. By slow, torturous degrees, the coughs eased and made way for labored breathing. The fall jarred him more than it should have, and he decided to cease his efforts. There was only short lapse of silence before he murmured, "If you're pathetic, then I'm weak."

Shizuo wouldn't budge until the informant told him to. "You should have killed me back then when you had the revolver. Maybe turned it to yourself afterwards. Avoided all of this."

"Kill me now, then." Those words were easy to speak, like a thought he had turned over in his head and considered countless times. Torture really made you think of the cure for life and pain.

Silence.

"Go on, Shizu-chan." Tired. Weary. "All it needs is a quick flick of your wrist, and I will avoid everything to come."

Shizuo's fingers tightened their grip on the doorway. "Not yet. I want to see the outside again with you. Just one more time."

Another laugh as a painful pang went through Izaya's chest, unlike the agony that dulled his thoughts. Would he dare to face the cruelty of hope? He shuddered once, then twice, his breaths hitching upward as though he were winded. "Good luck with that, Shizu-chan."

The blond released the metal and approached the informant, gathering him in his arms before heading back out into the maze without a word.

"What? I thought you said you wouldn't help…" The mumbled protest was lost in the cadence of Shizuo's steps, and slowly, Izaya turned his face towards Shizuo's shirt and closed his eyes, allowing his unwilling tears to dampen the fabric.

Something inside Shizuo sparked - a dying light thrown just a little bit more wood, keeping it alive for a few moments more. Perhaps something akin to hope, perhaps determination.

But eventually the flame would die out once more, and desperation would take over.

Nothing is sacred.

 _You let your emotions settle in again._


	19. The Art, Of Communication

**Remember, criticism is encouraged! It helps writers grow and all that good stuff.**

 **The Art, Of Communication.**

"Ne, Shizu-chan, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?"

Considering the silence that had settled over the two, it was a rather strange question for the informant to voice. His eyes remained closed and face turned inwards, away from the overhead lights, as though it caused him pain, but his breathing had evened out save for a couple sparse stutters.

"You know," the other one muttered, voice hushed as he maneuvered across the maze, facing the possibility of getting caught in a dead-end, wasting time, death by asphyxiation, et cetera… he didn't seem awfully concerned, more so stoic, rock-solid, unchanging. But that question made him look down for a moment at the raven, raising an eyebrow. "Out of all the things you could have asked me…" Shizuo raised his head back up and chewed his lip a little, thinking. "The morning before we got kidnapped. I'm guessing you brush your teeth every thirty minutes or something." Though faced with the possibility of, well, a violent death, he couldn't help but jab at the informant, more-so with dull humor than actual antagonism.

"Don't be silly," he replied, before frowning up at the other. The single eye that looked up at him was the same familiar rustic brown, yet there was no life bursting through, just gimlet flatness. "I did used to weigh myself after my daily baths, though I imagine I haven't maintained it."

"Who the hell weighs themselves daily?" The other asked, some disbelief in his voice. Though this was Izaya they were talking about, so his surprise was dampened somewhat.

"Someone who believes that a healthy body makes a healthy mind," Izaya scoffed, tilting his nose up. From his angle, he could only see the tip of Shizuo's nose and the bottom of jaw, where small bristly hairs jutted out. "You and your smoking tendencies have no right to judge." A small pause, before he asked quietly, "What is your best memory of this whole escapade?"

He didn't answer for a second. Two seconds. "Best as in 'worst,' or best as in memory where I'm not trying to avoid death?"

"Oh, come on now, don't be skeptical," Izaya chided. Gradually, the slightest hints of inflection graced his tone. "The real treasure is the memories we made along the way, and you require some sort of specification?"

The ex-bartender let out a raspy chuckle, letting a small grin loose. "Goddammit, flea, you always used to have a catch with every word you said. I guess it'd be when we had fish, and sang that stupid piccolo song."

" _That_ one? I thought you'd choose something a bit more…" He trailed off, before biting the inside of his cheek to suppress a smile. Oh, he knew which one he'd choose. "Mine would be when you nearly died." A sigh, as though one made in happiness. " _Ah_ , my fondest memories."

Shizuo rolled his eyes, shrugging off the comment. "You know there's plenty of those. Name one in specific."

"Oh, you know. The sparks that flew at that kissing booth…" Even though Shizuo wasn't looking down at him, he could see the flash of teeth in his peripherals.

His eyes threatened to pop out of his head. _Low hanging fruit, louse._ "The teeth that should have flown out of your face when I should have punched you," he said, half-joking, half-serious. "Ah, but that didn't happen. The electroshock did, though... God, that fuckin' stung."

"Eh? I thought you would have been more fond of the memory of your first kiss." If he wasn't before, then Izaya was definitely teasing now judging by the glint in his eye. His fingers, however, had loosely knotted in his shirt, where blood continued to leak from the wire that dug deep into his skin. Even that small movement hurt, but he wouldn't let that show now, would he?

"The kiss stung more than the electricity. Mentally, at least. Physically I'm pretty sure it's-"

"Why? I'm lovely." He stated that as plain fact, but as soon as he realized what he had said, his hand twitched up to his eye once before dropping back into his lap.

"..." The blond looked down at him, furrowing his eyebrows. "Yes, Izaya, you're very lovely…" His voice was dripping with deadpan sarcasm.

The corner of his mouth curved down. "What are you doing now, mocking me? How rude." Perhaps it was their closeness or a trick of light that allowed him to see the reflection of his face in Shizuo's eyes, but there was a difference between feeling and knowing what has been done to you as opposed to _seeing_ it. His stomach clenched, bile rising from the back of his throat, and his chest quivered once.

Shizuo's voice grinded to a halt, mind racing for a moment before he looked way, talking before his thoughts could move on. "You heard it here, folks-" What was that phrase some people said? "-Orihara Izaya says mocking is rude." Fake it 'till you make it? Something like that.

"Look at me."

Three simple words, each spoken slowly and deliberately. Gone was the playfulness, and all it left was the crumbling husk of a man.

The blond could have argued with him, said that it would waste time, there wasn't a point in it, but there _was_ a point. Maybe he wanted to stare down himself and realize the truth. The truth…

He stopped and turned his head to the other. "Make it quick."

Gingerly, Izaya lifted his hands and placed them on either side of Shizuo's jaw to keep him in place, his eye flickering from the left to the right. While it wasn't all that clear, he could still see the ugly swollen red of his eye, the skin around mottled black from where the acid splashed out, the continuous stream of yellow-tinged liquid dribbling down.

That eye was fucked. Shizuo knew it clear as day that it wasn't going to recover, but his face betrayed no emotion. "We don't have all day."

Izaya's breath came out in soft, uneven pants, jaw clenched tight, skin bleached white, but he did not yet look away.

The blond grimaced. "Come on."

That got the raven's attention, and for the first time since he had met his gaze, he was actually seeing him. "Ah, yes. All the disgust really brings out your eyes." His voice was hushed now, thin, and he turned his face away. "I can walk now."

"...Of course you can," the other muttered quietly, letting Izaya get onto his feet. The raven's knees locked for the first couple seconds, but he managed to straighten up. "Next time you want to stare into your reflection, do it when we're not being strangled to death." Or dying in general.

Izaya pursed his lips but said nothing. Rather, he simply cradled his arm to his chest and continued ahead of the other, each step dragging behind him, for even though the pain did not show on his face, it revealed itself in his body.

* * *

The cramped space and tepid air filled with words that wouldn't be said eventually made way for the salty tang of the sea, a sort of bitterness Izaya could taste on his tongue that seemed to reflect his emotions. A balcony extended out before them, hewn from marble with intricate patterns adoring the balusters. To their right lay another door - sealed, exactly like how their entrance did once they stepped out from the hall and into the cool night. Moonlight splashed down and turned the cresting waves to quicksilver, and a cloudless sky offered an unobstructed view of the stars.

At the left of the balustrade was a single table adorned by a red tablecloth and two chairs on either side. Warm candlelight spilled over a meal, and with mild repulsion, Izaya realized it was all the food they never managed to finish - bottles of wine, boxes of chocolate truffles, with a few... additions. A main course of grilled fish, an obscene amount of alcohol bottles, a box of cigarettes, and a notecard that read in flowery script, 'You've passed.' Rose petals spread along the floor added a touch of sickly sweetness to the air that made his stomach churn, leading right up to a mattress splayed out on the right. Plush white pillows that were bunched up against the corners contrasted with the bloody vibrancy of the duvet. More flower petals and candles, as if the sheer abundance of them didn't drive the point in already.

While Izaya understood the _fascinating_ implications here, he wouldn't quite let it spoil his first proper meal and bed. "I think they're spoiling us."

The blond decided to lean against the wall, not deciding to sit down at the table yet. He crossed one foot over the other and looked over the railing, into the glowing sea. "Actual food is spoiling us? Well, you're not wrong." He leaned off and turned his gaze back to the table, eyeing the pack of cigarettes. _Not just food._

Unlike Shizuo, Izaya was a little more adventurous in exploring the items on the table. Ultimately, his fingers closed over the object of Shizuo's temptation, and he asked, "What brand do you smoke?"

He glared at the raven for a few moments, feet shuffling against the floor. "Any."

"Any? Well…" With one casual flick of the wrist and a wince in pain to match, the carton flew from his hand and into the water with a discreet, faraway _plop_. "Go ahead and fetch that 'any.'"

Shizuo watched as the smoke pack trailed through the air and over the railing to dip down far away. He closed his eyes and sighed, running a hand through his hair as he grimaced. "Probably the only source of that cancer shit for miles. Goddammit, Izaya."

Painstakingly, Izaya approached the railing and pulled himself onto it, dragging the metal leg first then following it with the other. He kicked at the air in small motions then stilled, freely let his limbs hang over the sea. His gaze latched onto the sea and pale stretch of sand and pebbles, gauging the distance. "Doesn't seem fair that there is nothing here to entice me."

The blond opened his eyes and looked at the back of Izaya's head as he took a few steps forward. "What are you getting at?"

A long, drawn-out sigh, one that quiet enough that it was almost lost upon the lull of waves crashing against the coast. A line of tension wove through his shoulders, and he slouched as though he were already exhausted by the conversation or simply didn't bother to hold himself up. "I'm dying, and I don't see any medical equipment."

Shizuo walked over to the railing and flipped his legs over, letting them dangle in the air as he sat awfully close to Izaya. He didn't seem to really care about distance anymore. Something as petty as that didn't matter to him. "Think this is where your ride stops?" He asked, tilting his head to the side to see Izaya and his… features. _God. What the fuck..._

"I'm pretty sure infection will take me before I hit the water." A soft hum followed his words, the motion of his feet following the tune, completely unperturbed by the proximity. "Besides, I don't think I'd die from this height. I _would_ drown though, but that seems like a painful way to go." He turned to face the other, his lips twisted in a pained yet persistent smirk. "Doesn't my back seem oddly pushable to you?"

The blond stared back in dead silence for a solid three seconds.

Izaya jerked his head once, taunting. "No?"

The other's voice was cold as he turned back to admire the moon, reflecting the diffuse ocean beneath it. "No."

The dim light wasn't enough to ignite the red in Izaya's iris, and so it remained dark and unreadable. "Wouldn't you consider it a mercy killing?" He rolled his eyes emphatically, even allowing the wind to billow his stained shirt around him as he leaned forward. "The sort of action you'd reserve for injured animals? Say things like, 'We have to put it out of its misery. A clean death is better than-"

"Can we just…" The blond ground his teeth together for a moment in frustration. "Can we just be quiet for just this once? I'm not in the mood for philosophy."

His eyebrow lifted at the 'we,' yet he didn't spare a thought for it. "I assumed you know by now how much I like the sound of my own voice."

"I like the quiet more, thanks."

Izaya had mastered the practice of ignoring Shizuo, and his lips started to move over words before the other had even finished his sentence. "You know, I'm not that far off from the title of 'injured animal.' I already have the 'injured' part down to an art form, considering I look like someone had dragged me through a meat grinder and over a bed of shards before deciding that it wasn't enough and took an eye and leg." His smile turned contemptuous, words turning to acid. "As for the 'animal' part, you could say I'm around… 70% human right now with my lack of limbs? More?" A slight bounce of his shoulders. "Less? The psychological trauma has to count for something."

Surprisingly Shizuo didn't cut off Izaya at any part during his spiel and stayed silent, only talking when the raven was done. "I heard somewhere," he started, lightly kicking a leg into the air as he looked down at the empty landscape. "That all humans are animals. Some just show it more than others." A short lapse of silence as he thought. "I know what you're going to say. You don't need to repeat yourself."

"And here I am just about to repeat myself." The words were wry, almost, face lit up in subdued amusement. "Well, if I'm 70% human right now, then you would be around the 10% mark. An improvement," he lauded, motioning his hands for a clap yet not producing any sound, for it pained him enough just to move his wrists. Violently slapping his palms together didn't seem to be his most favored option to get underneath the beast's skin. _Ah, the mockery you give up when your body is broken._

He didn't seem to respond, only slowly swinging his head over to Izaya's attempt at a clap. "I'm surprised I didn't get 0%."

"Well I decided to be gracious with your percentage considering you didn't push me." A pause, and he tilted his head as he appraised the possibility. "Not yet, at least."

Shizuo's eyes met the other's. "Can't say it didn't cross my mind that you would push yourself off."

"Is this the first time we are in agreement?"

Dry, hollow laughter and a dry, hollow smirk. "First time for everything."

A small exhale akin to a chuckle, escaped his lips, and Izaya idly stretched his arms over his head before he pulled away and dragged himself to one of the chairs. "What do you say about dinner, then? There's another first."

The smile faded, and Shizuo flipped his legs back onto the floor. "We're both starved and thirsty, so sure." The fish… seemed to be different from the fish they had a while back. He munched on the bottom of his lip for a little before releasing a quiet sigh as he walked over to the table and took a seat.

Izaya's hands fluttered over the utensils like pale butterflies - uncertain. After a beat or two, he extended his arm to Shizuo, turning his hand so that the other could see his wounded wrist. "Do you mind pulling it out?" He bit his lip, as though the action alone was enough to bury his wounded pride.

Shizuo looked up at Izaya and blinked. "You've took trashcans and vending machines to the head and came out relatively fine. I'm guessing you can handle this with… not too much trouble."

Irritation flared across his features, and he started to withdraw his hand. "Well I can't very well break the wire myself."

"I meant the pain," the other muttered as he reached for the hand, carefully pulling it back to where it originally was.

The wire had dug deep into his flesh, the skin around it an inflamed red. It didn't sink into bone, but it certainly wasn't merciful to the flesh. Shizuo wasn't a surgeon. This was a job for someone who was incredibly precise, someone who had tools, _experience_ , someone like _Shinra_ , but Shinra wasn't here, and Shizuo had to use his hands as makeshift tools instead.

The blood that left the veins and mottled the middle part of the table blended in with the crimson red of the sheets, but now it was intermingled with the smell of grilled fish, alcohol, and sweets. Disgusting. Eventually Shizuo managed to pull the blood-soaked wire out, broken into two pieces as he threw them off the side, letting them be scattered into the wind.  
His fingers were stained with his rival's blood, and he certainly didn't feel any pleasure from it. In its absence, there was discomfort. The blond looked up to see the raven's expression after it was all done. His teeth had worried against his bottom lip, the skin raw and red. The rest of his face was ducked to the side, shadowed by tangled black locks falling over his brow.

"That's the easy part. Now we have to pour alcohol into your big gaping wrist wound."

"Nice of you to remind me that it is a big gaping wrist wound. I wouldn't have guessed otherwise."

"I try my best," the other responded, voice incredibly dry as he grabbed a bottle of alcohol and popped it open. "Ready?"

His impatience was thinly veiled, pressed into his pursed lips. "Get on with it."

Shizuo ripped off a piece of tablecloth and coated it in alcohol. It wasn't efficient, but it was better than directly pouring the alcohol into the wound. Once it was clean, another piece of cloth was gently knotted around it.

"You think you can make one for my eye? I've always wanted to be a pirate." It was a weak joke, one that lacked both the punchline and the necessary humor in his voice for it to even carry.

"Thought that was your job," the other replied as he reached for a significant amount of tablecloth. He ripped it off and tore the resultant fabric into two before handing it to the other. One strip was folded into a square - one that would be placed over Izaya's eye - and the other would be used to secure it.

When it was clear Izaya's fumbling wouldn't manage to hold everything in place, Shizuo reached forward and asked - more stated that he needed help with making the eyepatch. Any protest died on the raven's tongue. He ducked his chin downward to give the other better access to wrap the fabric around his head to knot it off.

When Shizuo glanced down, fingers hovering over the base of his head, he noticed how Izaya was staring, as though he were searching for something, before his eye turned half-lidded, amused by the presence or absence of whatever he was looking for.

"What?" Shizuo suddenly felt a spike of frustration, and he repeated the question again, sounding a bit angrier this time. " _What?_ "

"I don't think you're drunk enough for me to tell you and know you won't remember it tomorrow." Blatant dismissal, with a touch of wryness.

Shizuo hastily tied the eyepatch and backed away, glaring at the raven. "I don't care. Why does it matter at this point? Nothing fucking matters anymore, so do me a favor and let's try to be honest with each other, even if that word doesn't exist in your vocabulary."

A little rise in the corner of his lips, a smugness in his face that explained how much he was savoring the moment. " _I_ am not drunk enough for honesty," he admitted, folding his hands over each other to serve as a surface for his chin to rest upon.

The blond didn't take his gaze off the raven as he pushed an alcohol bottle towards Izaya while grabbing one of his own. Not the wine - the stronger one, filled with the tell-tale clear liquid. "First time for everything."

Izaya had shifted away slightly, as though he couldn't bear contact with the dark glass. "I dislike drinking."

"I've heard it's a great stress reliever," Shizuo said as he popped the cap off. He peered into the whorling liquid for a moment before he shrugged, taking a gulp or two of the alcohol. His throat didn't sting at all. Side-effect of having tough skin everywhere, he supposed, but he certainly felt the vodka entering his bloodstream. He leaned forward, setting the bottle down as he put his arms on the table and crossed them. "You know, I've always hated alcohol, but I can see why some people drink it."

The mask Izaya maintained was one of carefully crafted boredom. "There's an insect on your bottle, you know. Careful now. You might accidentally consume solid food."

He looked at the bottle, and Izaya was right. Shizuo watched the bug for a few seconds before he put a finger beside it, allowing it to crawl atop so that he could deliver it to the floor. "Real funny," he dryly replied as he leaned back up.

Abruptly, Izaya grinned. It was a cheshire smile of sorts, the kind that was wide and bared teeth as if he'd rather eat everyone than say hello. "What about a drinking game? We take turns asking questions, and if you don't want to answer, you take a swig."

"I'm terrible with making questions."

The intention behind his lips could easily be ensured. "This is the only way you'll get me to drink."

A delayed response. "... Fine. Who starts?"

His nails tapped idly against the glass of the vodka bottle as he reluctantly drew it towards him. If things went according to plan, he wouldn't even have to open it, much less swallow any of the vile liquid, and yet it seemed most of his efforts to try and predict the beast as a conversational partner never turned out quite as he planned. At least he would have another chance to torment the beast. His smile remained mocking, his motives laid bare. "Go ahead, _Shizu-chan_."

Shizu-chan. A name he hadn't heard in awhile - not with that sort of inflection, at least. Smooth amusement and mockery, as well as a sort of excitement that reminded him of the chase. The ex-bartender rolled his eyes, and spun his bottle of alcohol around a few times as he thought. "Fucking…" He looked at the bottle for a few seconds before turning to Izaya. "Did you ever wear any other coats?"

Izaya didn't know why the question had him laughing as hard as he did, enough to make his eyes squint and dimple as pain rippled up his sides. In between gasps of breath, he managed a highly incredulous, " _Really?_ "

The blond hissed with a grimace, " _Yes_ , really."

Giggles continued to escape from his lips. "I did not know my choice of attire was what you are the most curious about."

"Answer the damn question, flea!"

He sat back in his chair, biting his lip to repress more peals of laughter. "Well, I do have a longer version of it, one that reaches my ankles. Does that answer the 'damn question?'" At the last two words, he allowed his voice to dip down in an imitation of Shizuo's, drawing his features so that he mimicked the expression the other made when angry.

"Why you would ever need a coat that reaches down to your ankles is what fucking piques my interest. But yeah, I guess." He furrowed his eyebrows, lips downturning. "And I don't sound like that." He didn't comment on the other facet of Izaya's impersonation, however. That was only more ammunition to give the other. But it was bad acting, in his opinion.

Absentmindedly, he tipped the glass back and forth with his index finger before asking, "Why didn't you push me?" It was a question that thoroughly contrasted with the simplicity of Shizuo's, and it was one Izaya hoped would provoke the other into choosing similarly to make this game more than one-sided, tipped terribly in Izaya's favor.

Shizuo's body expression significantly sombered from its original irritation. "It didn't cross my mind," he stated flatly, giving Izaya a blank stare, although he could definitely notice that the blond wasn't happy with the turn this took.

For a couple of beats, the raven simply gazed at the other in dissatisfaction before tilting his head and allowing the other to continue.

Shizuo shifted in his seat. "... This one I never got an answer to." A large part of him very much knew here this was going, but he'd much rather stave it off than submit. At least right now. A part of him thought on how he could fire back, but he hadn't thought of any question yet. "Why are you so tough? You're skinny as hell but it's like you're denser than steel."

"If I didn't know any better, I would say you just paid me a compliment." Another tip of the bottle, one that had it at an incline that threatened to send it careening off the table, if not for Izaya's finger holding it. "I have to deal with plenty of dangerous men. Not ones that would lob vending machines at me," he continued with a pointed stare. "But throw punches that would actually hit."

The blond rolled his eyes. Sure, he was inaccurate, but… "I _have_ actually hit you a few times. Somehow a fucking trash can to the face doesn't seem to slow you down much."

"If you learned how to keep your pain in check through will alone, maybe you'd understand. Besides, they did a lot worse than just throw punches." Whatever implicit meaning that ran underneath those words couldn't be deduced from the rigid mask on Izaya's face.

Shizuo stared wordlessly for a second or two. "Let's move on."

"Let's kick it up a notch." His fingers clasped one another over the bottle, taunting as he borrowed the blond's words. "Do you want me to push myself off?"

The other leaned back and glanced at the drink for a moment before turning his attention to Izaya. It took him a while, but he reluctantly spoke. "No, I don't want you to push yourself off, I think."

"You think," Izaya echoed. While the response had him stilling slightly in surprise, the rest of his features remained composed. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of that response, and that allowed a flash of irritation to cross his eye.

Shizuo leaned forward, putting his arms on the table. "Yes, Izaya, I fucking think." He let out a sigh before he spoke again. "Do you _want_ to be pushed off?"

 _It seems the brute is starting to learn was sort of questions to ask._ "If I did, I wouldn't be here. I like doing things myself." _Too bad he's nowhere near where I'm going._

"Independent person," the blond sarcastically complimented.

Izaya didn't miss a beat, blunt as can be. "I'm pretty sure suicide warrants independence. What would you do if I did take the leap?"

The other tapped his fingers against the table, switching his gaze between the floor, bottle, railing, sky, then back down again. A few seconds of silence passed and he took a swig of alcohol, while Izaya simultaneously grinned in victory. Choosing not to answer was an answer in itself.

 _Yeah, I fucking know his tricks alright._ _I can play my own game._ "When do you think you'd have died if I didn't save you?"

 _Mmm… Touché._ While his smile didn't falter, the imperceptible twitch of his eyebrow gave away his annoyance at the question. "The very start. I doubt I would survive leaping from a truck just to shred myself on asphalt. I'm pretty sure you'd like that. Though…" His fingers slid towards the makeshift bandage on his wrist before resting on the fork and taking a tentative bite out of the meal. He doubted the food was poisoned since it was a rather simple way to go out, especially after all that they had been through."Why am I worth saving to you?"

Once again, the blond didn't have anything to say. _Fucker._ He looked at the table and spent a few seconds thinking, before shrugging and grabbing the bottle. Another swig, another point to notch in Izaya's favor. Shizuo recalled something interesting from… he didn't know how far back, but at least he could bring it up. "Back in solitary, I never saw my name written down. Maybe it's obvious, but why was that?"

Silence.

Shizuo blinked, patiently waiting.

With an eyeroll, Izaya unenthusiastically popped open his own punishment and swallowed a mouthful. Almost instantly, its acrid taste tore down his throat like acid, and he winced inwardly as his vision blurred for a couple, agonizing moments as the burn traveled to his empty stomach. Not drinking made one a lightweight, so it seemed. "You really are like a fly that I cannot swat." Just as every word, every movement, every breath Izaya took infuriated a certain debt collector to no end, Shizuo's unpredictability produced the very same reaction.

A dry smirk on the ex-bartender's lips.

"Smugness doesn't suit you."

"People change, huh?"

That answer seemed to satiate him, so he rolled his hand in a gesture for them to continue. "Do you _want_ your name to be written down on my invisible list of names?"

"Uh… no. I don't think I want to be in any of _your_ lists."

The corner of his mouth quirked up, eye half-lidding in his scrutiny. "What if I told you it is a list of people I want dead?" Bad joke, but it would serve its purpose.

Wry laughter. "Is this your way to sweeten the deal? I have a death wish, but it's not that bad." It was a lie, one Izaya seemed to have caught considering the tilt of his head. "I know you're afraid of death, but have you always been afraid of me?"

Unimpressed, yet perhaps a little insulted judging by the twitch of his lips downward. "Implying that I am afraid of you now, I see. Still, my answer is no. An easy question," he derided, voice low and mocking. "I suggest you fix your wording if you want a good reply."

 _Fuck,_ the other internally cussed himself out. "Uh-huh," was his outward reply, but the contortion of eyebrows clearly showed his irritation. "Moving on."

"What are you afraid of?"

Shizuo raised an eyebrow. What did the raven expect? "Death."

Izaya parroted the expression. "Yes, and?"

The other narrowed his eyes. "That answers your question, doesn't it?" _A game of honesty and it turned into a tug of war._

"I'm pretty sure people have more than one fear, you know."

"Tch. Fine." The blond's gaze dropped as he thought over the answer, his hands tightening minutely over the armrests. "Well… I'm afraid of what's gonna happen to my brother once he realizes that I'm not coming back."

Seeing as how the raven didn't seem to respond verbally to his answer, he decided to continue. "You know, back there in the forest, when I really was going to kill you, I saw that expression. You were afraid. Of what?"

Whatever amusement that danced in his eye had all but dried up, leaving them cold and rigid. With this question, it was clear Shizuo had crossed an invisible line, overstepped his boundaries, but while Izaya's face tightened in an attempt to retain composure, there was a begrudging respect as he pulled his drink towards him and took a swig. Shizuo finally heeded his advice.

Immediately, his vision swam, his stomach clenching in the start of retching all its contents, but a swallow or two had him keep himself in check. Already, the alcohol had started to affect him, relaxing his muscles and dulling the pain as his mind buzzed. His cheeks tinted pink, and his smirk lost its bite.

When Shizuo saw Izaya's progression in terms of tipsiness, he blinked. "You're uh, a real lightweight. Never drank before?" Granted, the blond himself never made a habit of drinking, but it was his body that made him one hell of a heavyweight.

"I hate drinking," he repeated, his head lolling slightly to the side. "It impairs your thoughts. You wouldn't understand. Your thoughts have always been impaired since day one." While his focus had dimmed, it seemed Izaya was just as capable of insulting the beast with the same fluid malice to his tone.

Shizuo let out a low, silent growl, indicating his feelings. "I can say the same about you."

That thoroughly entertained the raven, judging by the widening of his lazy grin. "You're really making me out to be quite the villain. Evil rubs his hands together in that classic way, cackling all the while. And _you_." He pointed at Shizuo as if to drive in his point. "You and your monster tendencies seclude you from people, just like that classic villain. Unlike him, you're afraid of being alone, ne?" Judging by how his voice hardened towards the end and demanded an answer, this question was his turn.

He was silent for a second or two before he grabbed the bottle. His grip flexed around the glass before he sighed and put it back. "Yes. I am. But I deserve to be alone."

" _Ooooh_." The syllable was drawn out for as long as it took for Shizuo to grit his teeth in an effort to restrain himself from ending the one opposite to him. "Poor Shizu-chan has abandonment issues. Good thing I'm here to keep you company, otherwise you would have…" He trailed off, and a flicker of confusion passed over his features. "Spiraled downward into chaos. Maybe I should have jumped."

"... I'm already at ground zero, Izaya," the other said, voice tight with frustration. "Maybe you should have jumped," he echoed in agreement, but he wasn't sure if he really meant it.

"Yes, but I wouldn't be able to see you hit rock bottom and start to dig." His tone turned accusatory, eye drooping down involuntarily. "Though I thought you were supposed to be honest with me. I'm insulted."

"I don't care if you're insulted." His reply was a loose shrug, as if it were only natural. He spent a few seconds in thoughtful silence, fingers wrapping around the bottle of alcohol a few times before his lips twitched. Funny how they were bickering back and forth, back and forth, but they weren't actively trying to kill each other. No flying of fists, no throwing of knives. Before, they would have long since tried to - or rather, Shizuo tried to kill Izaya. Back in…

"Do you still remember what Ikebukuro was like?"

Izaya's brows drew together in rapt consideration. "I remember." For a couple of moments, it appeared as though those two words were all he had to offer before continuing. "I remember when this little black-haired boy pressed his face up against glass to marvel at the city lights and roaming people. Endlessly fascinated by the sheer largeness of the world and the diversity of the people within it." His words slurred ever-so-slightly, yet the corner of his eye creased in some sort of dreaminess.

"Holds up to this day, huh," the other passively said in a bit of humour.

"I do still think of it as a sea of possibility." Perhaps it was the alcohol that loosened his tongue, that allowed him to continue his story. "So this little scrawny kid, whose parents have seen more of the world than they have seen of him and brought back a present of twins for him to take care of, grew up to become one of the most dangerous men in Tokyo. Those who are alone in life either end up on the top of the world or below it." There it was, that tactful preference of a word that cleanly communicated a state of being rather than state of emotion. Alone, not lonely.

 _If I asked him that, he'd probably give me some bullshit on loving humanity so he can't be lonely. I'll save that question for later._ "On the top of the world or below it," Shizuo echoed, eyes watching the raven, ears perked to hear the changes in his voice. Something certainly felt different. His vibe of being the usual Izaya weakened, making way for something else.

"I suppose you ended up on the latter half. You were never…" His hands fiddled with the red bandages, pressing into the dampness. " _Ambitious_ enough. You work as a debt-collector and hardly make enough money to put food in your stomach and cancer in your lungs when you could have built an empire with your monster strength."

Shizuo shook his head. "No. I never planned for that. And even if I did, you were always around every corner, doing everything in your power to bring me down to the lowest point you could, ever since high school."

"Yes, but if you had the desire, if you were capable of cruelty, you could have resisted me. But no," he drawled, languidly listing his head. "You're short-sighted, disgustingly short-tempered, and lacking more than a couple brain cells. _Not_ -" he added hastily. "That there is any problem with that. It just makes this all the more amusing." While there was a viciousness in his words, he spoke with a detachment of saying hard facts, like 'the sky is blue' or 'the grass is green.'

 _Capable of cruelty. Am I?_ Shizuo crossed one leg over the other at the thigh and took a bite out of the grilled fish. Actually eating the food given to them would at least give some incentive for him to take his mind off of things, if just a little. "Tell me something new."

"New? Well…" The flush in his cheeks had deepened, adding a wonderful vibrance to pale skin. "You told me something that fits that description. Why…" A pause. "Why do you want to see the outside _with me_ one last time?"

He certainly told him something new. Shizuo took a while to respond, but eventually he spoke. "I'm guilty. Yeah, I said it. I'm fucking guilty. I just wanted to see the outside with you because, fucking, I don't know, you'd like it or something." He gazed at the peaceful sea, endless as it went over the horizon. "The night sky, the sea, all of is just… calming."

While Izaya predicted this answer, his mouth did part slightly in shock. From this angle, with Shizuo's face turned to the side with firelight and moonlight alike allowing for a play of light and shadows, it gave him an interesting perspective. "I like it."

"Thanks," the other commented, voice almost devoid of emotion as cracks of surprise slipped through at Izaya's unexpected response.

His gaze didn't follow Shizuo's. It remained steady, steady unlike the twitching of his lips. A pity the brute didn't realize Izaya wasn't even looking at the ocean for him to turn it into a joke. "Well, it definitely beats sterile white hallways splattered with my blood."

The blond turned his head back to face Izaya, noticing the repressed laughter. "Yeah, I think I can agree on that one." He put a hand against his face and drummed his fingers against the table for a few moments before he continued. "You think people back at home think we're dead now?"

"Dead, maybe. Eloped seems like a better option," Izaya chirped.

Shizuo rolled his eyes. "I can name one who'd think that. Wonder if anyone bothered to look for us."

 _I doubt anyone bothered to look for_ me. His expression soured minutely before returning to that strange contentment. _Can't say the same about you._ "Erika-san does have interesting fantasies. While lovers might be stretching things, do you want me to be your friend?" He spoke the question pragmatically, as though its answer was simply a passing curiosity.

The other raised an eyebrow at that. "No. I don't understand why you'd ever want to be friends with a monster. Even if what you're asking is a mocking question, I don't want you to even consider it. Just for your own sake."

Shizuo was met with incredulity. " _My_ sake?" he scoffed, biting down on the anticipation of the beast playing right into his hands. "You never once worried about hurting me when you were striking to kill."

"I'm telling you this as of present, not as of past. And besides, I'd rather you be killed than be dragged down to _my_ level trying to befriend me."

Satisfaction, as if finally having completed a need action, expressed in the pleased curve of his lips. "Aww, Shizu-chan cares about me. Frankly, I am _touched._ " He placed a hand over his heart and one at his brow as though he were swooning. Inwardly, his pulse had quickened, though while his alcohol-addled brain was still capable of playing mind games, he couldn't try to understand what any of this meant.

"Uh-huh. Whatever you say," Shizuo bluntly replied, hiding the irritation at how he threw himself right into the trap.

"'Whatever you say,'" Izaya repeated, victory etched into his features. "That is the response of someone _desperately_ trying to find a way to dismiss what he said and failing."

"Are you lonely?"

Three simple words, stated tersely, were enough to to make his self-satisfied grin fall. For a moment, Izaya was reminded of when he had fallen off a perch as a child and landed hard on his back, the impact forcing every wisp of air in his lungs out of his mouth as he lay there, gasping and dizzy, struggling to breath.

That was how he felt right now, trying to remember how to draw air into his lungs, for breathing never felt quite so important until you had the wind knocked out of you. When he took a swallow of that wretched liquid, he belatedly realized he had drunk more than he intended, clumsy enough with his grip on the bottle that strands of the alcohol escaped from the corners of his lips. He forcefully shut his eyes against the vibrancy the world took on, as every color increased in intensity, deepened in flavor, turned blurry over the haze his mind took on.

Every swig he took peeled back one of his many masks, drained away the cruelty, left behind someone just that bit more human.

That's what he was looking for. Shizuo struck a weak point. Drinking meant either an 'I don't know' or a 'Yes,' and he could already tell what the answer was. Maybe none of what was being said would ever be useful knowledge, but he felt glad that there was at least something behind all those empty words thrown between each other in a haze of arch rivalry. Shizuo expected himself to get some sort of reaction, but it felt strangely cold. Well, they were both lonely in their own way, he figured.

"Your eyes are very…" He slurred, his head rolling to the side as a lazy smile pulled at his lips. Not drunk yet, but he was getting there, dangling right at the edge of the precipice. " _Very_ yellow."

Shizuo blinked. Izaya was right, he did have yellow eyes, but why… "They, uh… they are, yeah. And you have red eyes."

"Red _eye_ ," he corrected, sounding extremely pleased with himself. Izaya continued to loll about from side to side, humming underneath his breath. "Yours are pretty."

"Uh…" He blinked, the colour of his cheeks threatening to betray him. "Thanks…? I, uh, don't get that a lot."

"You're welcome!" Izaya exclaimed, all at once rising from his seat with a screech of wood on floor. He grabbed the alcohol bottle by its neck and walked about, each movement lacking the usual grace with a clumsiness that contradicted his image, and plopped down onto the bed, sinking into the plushness. "Alcohol does these sort of thi...things to you. A couple more swigs and I'll be asking you to marry me." He found his own joke _extremely_ funny, judging by the obscene amount of giggles rattling his chest.

Shizuo found it harder and harder to conceal his own laughter. A light smile graced his features, and he let out a few chuckles. "Yeah…"

"Though the real question is," he began, his tone incomparably cheerful. "What am… what am _I_ to you?"

The other fell silent and looked down, slightly uncomfortable. He didn't know how to answer that himself, didn't even want to think of it, so Izaya got a show of the blond chugging down more alcohol and even let out an enthusiastic cheer.

"Need a lot more to drink to get me drunk," he muttered to himself, before he looked back up at Izaya. His thoughts were swirling in a pendulum on what topics he could land on, half between curiosity and half between pragmatism on pulling out information that could be important. Though 'important' in this sense really didn't mean anything. Eventually he backtracked to the topic of being lonely and wondered.

"Have you…" He had touched upon this already, back when he was carrying a recently legless man up a staircase, but maybe this time he'd get a proper answer. "... Ever loved someone?"

"Love… looove," Izaya trilled as he lay down, stretching out like a cat in the sun. "'This I want to believe in implicitly. Man was born for love and revolution.'" A roll, followed by another quote. "'Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything… everything passes.'" Dazai Osamu.

"So…" Shizuo shifted in his seat, eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he tried to transcribe what the other was saying. But he knew the answer. "That's a no."

"You see, Shizu-chan." Izaya shifted, settling on his stomach with his elbows holding him up, legs crossed behind him at their ankles. "I have always been… _ridiculously_ immune to anything associated with innocent happiness. Not that love is all that innocent," he amended. "People _cheat_ for love, they _kill_ for love, they wage _wars_ for love. You think anyone would start a war for me out of love and not manipulation?" There was no chance for a reply, as Izaya was already forging on. "Yes, there were all those girls that trailed after me like lost puppies, enraptured by my charm and good looks, but as soon as I reveal my intention, they scatter in _fear._ " The prospect seem to delight him. "Call me what you will - a skeptic, a cynic, but I don't believe anyone is capable of loving me for what I am, and that is exactly what I intend it to be… Makes it easier to detach and watch from above, so I don't complain."

A different time, a different man, and yet the kidnapper's words seemed to hold true.

' _That's not entirely true, is it? It's more that your heart is so small and fragile that you keep it under lock and key. Fill it up with real love, and it would break.'_

 _There's more to this story than meets the eye, but we'll be dead before I figure it all out. What a fucking shame that is, huh? Maybe this'll be our last night. Maybe it won't._

The blond simply nodded. "Interesting. It's your turn now."

"What would you do if someone loved you?"

Izaya's expression was uncharacteristically open, filled with a genuine curiosity.

Silence. Then a drink as an answer.

"What am I to you?"

Joyfully, the raven lifted his bottle as if he were toasting before taking a swallow. By the time he straightened up again, it became clear that he crossed over from 'tipsy' to 'drunk.' "How…" He pantomimed grabbing something before sharply pulling his hands apart. "How does it feel tearing people to shreds?"

Shizuo swished around the alcohol bottle a little, checking to see how much there was left. Around half the bottle. He drank from it for a solid five seconds before putting it down, nearly emptying it. "Terrible," he answered, throat muscles just a tiny bit burnt. "It feels terrible." Izaya didn't seem to mind the rule-breaking, judging by his blatant lack of attention.

"Do…" He looked up at the moon and stopped for a moment before continuing. "Do you still hate me?"

It was a drunken, lazy smile, but god did it change him, transform him into a different person. Disarming, even when it wasn't purposed to be charming. "Yes. Do _you_ still hate me?"

When Shizuo grabbed another bottle, Izaya already knew the answer to that question.

"Do…" He ran a hand through his hair before glancing down at Izaya. "Do you…" His voice was uncertain, shaky, as if he wasn't sure if he wanted to say it. "Do you love me?"

That question was so far from what Izaya expected, a complete antithesis that left him open-mouthed. Through the fuzziness in his mind that left the world so much _more_ , all he could register was the fact that Shizuo had managed to leave him speechless. "...what?"

"I… I asked what I asked." He wasn't sure what to expect. He wasn't sure if he was going to expect _anything._

Izaya's expression turned somber - eyebrows drawn, eyes still, mouth a soft, somewhat wistful line. All at once, it regained that drunken enthusiasm as he dragged the bottle towards him and took a swig, laughing all the while. A genuine sound, one that didn't grate over his throat when it was cold and mocking, one that fell as gently as rain.

Shizuo fiddled with his drink, fingers running along the glassy surface of it up and down and up and down. His face was blank as he looked down at the floor, completely silent while Izaya's laughter filled the space between them. His body was nigh-still had it not been for the movements of his hands. Any more pressure applied to the bottle, and it would have been shattered. He didn't know what to think. The laughter had him tensing, with it only contributing to his mounting confusion.

"If- If you're…" Izaya's words tumbled over one another, just coherent enough for Shizuo to catch snippets of what he was saying. "Going to a-ask a question like _that…_ " He swiped at his mouth, brushing away any alcohol that had spilled out during his recent drink. A noticeable swallow over his dry throat as he squinted his eyes shut, wincing. "I hate drinking."

"You know… I'm gonna remember this… and you won't." Shizuo's voice was quiet, withdrawn.

An indecipherable mumble, before the raven spoke up, "Would you-" He cut himself off, as if he were still _there_ enough to doubt himself. He jerked his head once and squinted up at Shizuo, mouth pulled into a lethargic, inviting grin. "Would you let me kiss you again?"

The blond met his gaze and parted his lips to seemingly say something. He held it open for a second before he sighed and let the influx of alcohol be welcomed into his bloodstream.

Izaya rolled onto his side, his body trembling from the force of his giggles. "What was- what was _that_? I thought it was _easy_."

He shrugged lightly. "Don't know." That only served to devolve Izaya further into his laughing fit.

Shizuo put the bottle back on the table and waited for the informant's laughter to subside. After it turned into sparse drunken chuckles, he interlocked his fingers, and Izaya could see only the faintest of shaking in them. That is, if he was keen enough to notice.

"Do you still want to kill me?"

He turned over, carelessly holding the emptying glass in his hands over the edge of the bed. It slipped through his fingers to land on the ground, rolling as whatever liquid spilled out. Belatedly, Izaya commented, "Oh," before giggling again. Instead, he grasped a handful of the rose petals to fiddle with, the flush on his face and the hue of his eyes a similar warm red. It didn't seem like he would be answering, much less anything indicating that he heard the question.

He could already feel the frustration crawling in the back of his mind. His voice was louder, reaching up to his normal volume this time. "Izaya. Did you hear me?"

The entirety of the raven's attention was on the petals in his hands. He was staring at them with such ferocity that it made it seem they held the answer to all of life's mysteries.

This was getting ridiculous. There wasn't a point with bothering with this anymore, seeing as how Izaya was completely out of it. With a huff he stood up and walked over to the railing, leaning against it as he looked down at their island enshrouded in darkness, the sea spread out beyond it.

"'I like… like roses best," Izaya mumbled, cradling the delicate bits of rose. "'But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if... people who like roses best have to d-die four times over again.'" A pause, before he abruptly exclaimed, tossing the accumulated petals into the air with fanfare. "'Mine has been a life of much… much shame! I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being!'"

The marble that Shizuo laid his hands on was crushed into dust. As he turned around, his face contorted into the usual anger that Izaya knew and loved. "Goddammit, answer my fucking question! Do you still want to kill me? Want me dead?!"

Izaya quietened. Perhaps he heard him…? No such luck, as the male grabbed onto one of the pillows and hugged it to his chest, murmuring incoherently.

"Izaya!" Shizuo growled, walking over to the raven as he ripped the pillow away from his grip. "Give me the fucking answer! _Yes_ or _no_!"

"Yesss…"

The blond balled a fist. "Yes?" He echoed angrily, restraining himself from hitting the crippled man.

"No-oh-oh!" Izaya trilled happily, spreading his arms wide before wrapping them around himself.

Shizuo grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up to head-height, forcing the raven to face his direction. " _Look_ at me," he snarled.

His eye was unfocused and fever-bright, fluttering around before noticing the faint pain of his chest. Finally, his gaze met Shizuo's, smile gradually falling away. "I am." Two, soft words.

He struggled against the notion of wrapping a hand around his neck. The fire of anger in him was being fanned with every word that left the _flea's_ mouth, tended to by the lazy grins and genuine laughter, fueled by the intentional lack of response. "You know what I asked. Answer me."

"No." Resigned, wistful almost. His gaze remained remarkably steady for someone who could hardly stand with how he was leaning against the hands that gripped him. It was as though he was searching for something yet again. "I- I don't want to... kill you."

Slowly, Shizuo set down the raven back on the bed, and his features relaxed. "Why? Why don't you want to kill me?" He asked, looking as lost as he felt. At the start of this, he never expected it to take this turn. It would have just been sharing some tidbits, but it quickly devolved into… into _this._ He was too naive to believe things would have gone out differently, and now there wasn't any going back. He would remember this. All of this. And Izaya wouldn't.

Even drunk, the words rested on his tongue, caught on his teeth, hung behind his lips, dried as he opened his mouth. Izaya spoke deliberately slowly, just so that he wouldn't stumble over his words.

"You cheated for me."

The festival, the chess.

"You killed for me."

The game of tag.

"You waged war for me."

The damp warmth of blood as humans turned into a mess of limbs.

"That's the most anyone has ever done for me," he continued, swaying from side to side. His heavy eyelids closed over his eyes involuntarily. "I can't very well kill that person."

"No… look at me, Izaya," the other denied, stepping back as he gestured to himself. "I'm a fucking monster. What do I call myself who killed all those people? You were right, Izaya, you were right from day-fucking-one, because of what happened, you were proven ten times over. How many did I kill back there? How many _died_ because of me, just so that no one killed you?!"

Everything before the very end was dismissed by a small incline of his head. "Just so that no one killed me," he stated, more to himself than anything. "You know, we're… we're both monsters. I killed humans in the interest of self-preservation. I killed a human in the interest of _myself._ I- I was afraid…" A slight twitch of his lips. It was funny. So _so_ funny. "We _deserve_ each other."

Izaya was going to wake up from this none the wiser.

Nothing was going to get better due to that.

Nothing was going to change.

As always.

The cycle would continue, and they'd both be stuck in the darkness.

"So what now? What the fuck are you gonna do with this revelation?" he asked, voice grating over the coarseness of his throat, confused and angry, bordering on breaking.

"Pass out, maybe." He fell onto his side, face softening with drowsiness. "Tell me what I said when I wake up."

"You wouldn't believe a word of it," the other commented in irritation.

"Tell me it anyway."

Dry laughter from Shizuo. "Whatever, I guess. I guess it's best to give it a shot, even if you wouldn't believe me. Go… go get some rest."

Abruptly, much faster than one could expect from a lightweight who was now experiencing the sedative effects of alcohol, Izaya had sat up and leaned forward, pecking Shizuo on the lips. His aim was off, yet it thoroughly amused the raven nonetheless judging by how his mouth quirked up mischievously.

The other jumped back a little, eyes widening as he covered his mouth with his hand. His cheeks tinted a shade darker, and he balled his hand into a fist, coughing into it awkwardly.

A giggle. "You should have answered that question." He leaned down, settling against the pillows. Warm and plush, allowing a small ache of nostalgia from a time where he got to sleep on something so luxurious every day. "Otherwise I wouldn't have had to do that."

Shizuo wiped his arms over his lips and turned around to walk over to the balcony. "Just get some rest," he said, light irritation and discomfort coating his words.

…

A few seconds passed. "Izaya?" he quietly called out, turning around only to find that the raven had fallen soundly asleep. "Oh."

"Well…" He turned back around, resting his arms against the surface of the marble railing as he looked at the glowing moon, taking in its beauty.

"I guess people really do change."

* * *

Not all knights come in shining armor.

Not all good guys carry flowers.

And not all monsters are evil.


	20. With Silver Bells, And Cockleshells

**With Silver Bells, And Cockleshells.**

Izaya remembered another reason why he didn't like drinking.

Reasons, more like it.

There was of course, the wonderful sensation of throwing up everything he had consumed the previous night, with the added spice of whatever pain the alcohol dulled returning in full force. That wasn't enough, it seemed, as the most wonderful migraine had sprung up among his synapses. Then there was the dizziness when faced in a world that suddenly appeared too bright and too loud.

If that wasn't humiliating enough, an audience of one (and arguably quite a number of unseen eyes) that startled awake next to him once the glorious sounds vomiting over the railing began simply stared at him throughout it all.

"You, uh… okay?" The blond awkwardly asked, as he watched digested food flying... magnificently through the air to disappear into the sea. They didn't have any water either. Just more goddamn alcohol.

Once the puking and consequent dry heaves subsided, Izaya, pale and trembling from the force of it, swiveled to glare at the brute. He swiped his hands over his mouth, swallowing over the wretched taste in his mouth. Regular throwing up was unbearable as it was, but when it came to something that burned on the way down, it definitely didn't show any mercy coming back the way up. "Long, sullen silences with an occasional punch to the face or a question of apparent concern. The Heiwajima way."

God, it felt so uncomfortable. Last night only further magnified that feeling, and Heiwajima moved his legs around in an attempt to ease the discomfort, before giving up and deciding to get off the bed. "Got me down to a T apparently." The question echoed around his mind, but he figured Izaya would ask in due time. _Tell him?_ _I'll give it a minute._

Without the distraction of the punishment for alcohol abuse, Izaya was free to assess his surroundings, starting from the relatively untouched food to an empty bottle on the ground to the rumpled rose petals and bed sheets. His mouth downturned as distaste formed on his tongue, so much more vile and revolting than the lingering aftereffects of throw up. Sighing, he stood (more like stumbled, not that he would admit it to himself) and tugged open one the boxes of chocolate open, popping one into his mouth in an attempt to erase the taste. His eyebrows furrowed, tongue rolling the sweet around thoughtfully as he tried to grasp his foggy recollections of the previous night. It tapered off around the point he started complimenting the monster's eyes, disappearing around the point he started quoting Dazai Osamu and his thoughts on love. Vaguely, he could feel a strange sort of heat touch his face as he recalled his answer, but he hoped it would pass off as his symptoms. After taking the box with him back to the bed, Izaya ate two more of those cloying treats, just so that the disgusting flavor of sugar and chocolate covered the even more revolting alternative.

Really, everything beyond that was a mystery. Just fleeting images, like a book where pages were sporadically torn off.

' _It feels terrible.' 'I thought it was_ easy.' A laugh that fell like rain.

' _...kiss…'_ Roses. ' _Yesss…' 'I don't want to…'_

Speechlessness. 'Look _at me.' 'Why?'_

' _Give me the fucking answer!_ Yes _or_ no!' ' _...shame...'_

Amusement. ' _I hate drinking.' '...fuck are you gonna do with this revelation?'_

' _ **Izaya!'**_

"Izaya." He was broken out his trance by a familiar arm waving in front of his face. "Hey, Izaya. Earth to fucking flea."

The raven swatted Shizuo's hand away. An uncharacteristic fury that tore through the haziness tightened his face and clenched his jaw. He grit his teeth hard over his next words. "Well, my clothes are still on, so I don't assume we went _that_ far."

Shizuo raised an eyebrow in confusion. "The fuck are you…" Slowly, the eyebrow lowered, instead making way for an amused huff. "No, we didn't _fuck_ , if that's what you're asking." He crossed his arms and continued. "Drunk you told me to tell you what happened last night. I told him you wouldn't believe me. He told me to do it anyway. Go figure."

Opening his mouth the first time only served to make Izaya angrier, his knuckles turning white as his fingers curled into fists, but the crude manner through which the truth was uttered had him loosening his hold on his ire. Not completely, even when he knew Shizuo wasn't an accomplished liar. "'Drunk me' seems like a charming person. You should film him next time so that we can both laugh about it later," he muttered. While he still remained hunched by the railing, making sure that there was a meter of distance between them, Izaya was gradually uncoiling.

"Well, for starters, the difference between you and you on half a bottle of alcohol is worlds apart. It didn't take much for you to get pretty damn drunk." Yes, this was far from the same Izaya he encountered last night. Far from it. So far away.

"I hate drinking. I'm pretty sure not touching it for most of your life only to ingest half a bottle does that sort of thing to you." His tone was dry, smile equally so. "I hope you didn't take _too_ much advantage of me. I know it's tempting."

Somehow, someway, Shizuo had enough self-restraint to not have his lips part into a massive grin. "You kissed me."

A blink. Then two.

"On the lips."

The sheer disarray of his thoughts shone through his features as he processed this bit of information over the throbbing headache. Inexplicably, his tongue had gone dry. "'Drunk me' must be _very_ charming then. There is no way I would find you attractive enough sober, so you should be thankful for the charity." He had the sort of tone of a man with no fond appreciation for the current situation, as if he were awkwardly shoved into a room full of people that wanted his head mounted on a pike and was forced to joke with them.

Shizuo rolled his eyes. Charity. "You asked me if you'd let me kiss you. I drank. Then when you did, you said something like 'if you told me no then I wouldn't have kissed you.'" Truth be told, he was only slightly buzzed during that whole ordeal, and if Izaya figured that out, well...

For a moment, he couldn't help but gawk at the other in disbelief. Had the brute finally lost his mind? "You drank to that? You do know drinking in this case most likely means a 'yes?'"

The blond shrugged. "That was an answer to a different person. If you asked me that now, I sure as hell wouldn't let you anywhere _near_ my face."

Different person. Well. He hoped he was a happy, _quiet_ drunk. "Yet you _did_ sleep next to me."

"The bed is more comfortable than the floor."

"I thought that discomfort of being near me would outweigh the comfort of sleeping on a bed." The more he got into this conversation, the more smug and relaxed he became. "Really, if you wanted to get intimate, all you had to do was ask." A pause. Izaya leaned forward, closing the distance in one languid movement. " _Just_ so that I can laugh in your face."

"Weren't _you_ the one who said that you'd sleep with me because you were attracted to how I look?" Shizuo said, firing back with a grin as he intentionally bumped his forehead against the other's.

Almost immediately, Izaya recoiled back with an expression similar to that of a startled cat. The sharp movement did little favors for the mounting headache, one he had successfully ignored up until this point.

"Remember that one time when you stared at me for a pretty long while back at the lake? And when I noticed, you just played it off." One more shot as he stepped forward. He was enjoying this, no doubt.

The rapidly closing proximity seemed to encourage him to speak through a faltering smirk. "Like you expect me to play it off now?"

His grin couldn't get wider. "And what is _that_ supposed to imply?"

A few, precious seconds of hesitant silence before he could finally formulate a reply. "...It's not my fault your head is in the gutter."

"Said the guy who kissed me- _twice_ \- and called me attractive? Same guy who wouldn't mind sleeping with me because I apparently look good?"

If the raven wasn't flustered before, he definitely was now. His cheeks had tinted a similar color to the one they had when he was tipsy, but unlike that sight, there was no smile to accompany it. His eyes met Shizuo's, defiant. "The first time was because I had no choice, and the second was me being an adventurous drunk. I'm _sure_ you're arriving at a point."

Shit, he was right about _that_ at least. "I can give you that. But then why are you blushing?" This felt _so_ satisfying, even if it came at the re-realization that some part of Izaya had a genuine thought of… well.

It was so tempting to duck his face away just so that he wouldn't have to see the day Shizuo was _laughing_ at him, a special sort of torture he never thought he'd experience. Then again, he didn't think he would be getting drunk to start with, and that prediction fell more than a few meters short. When all else fails, deflection prevails. "I'm getting really bored and impatient, and I don't _do_ bored and impatient."

Shizuo leaned in _close_ , close enough that the raven could feel his warm breath pass over his face. "Well, you can do amused and short tempered."

Belatedly, Izaya realized that he had backed himself against the railing, which meant there was nowhere to retreat lest he give up the challenge and turn away. "I'm starting to doubt the beauty of our mutual, unwilling tolerance." Yet, Orihara Izaya was never one to lose, no matter what it took. Shizuo's mouth that was pulled back in that ridiculous grin of his made him realize with certainty what it would take to return control of the situation to its rightful owner.

With his own lips parted, Izaya pressed them against the other's smirk, allowing his tongue to freely run over Shizuo's teeth.

Shizuo's plan crumbled completely in the span of a hundred and fifty milliseconds. The instant Izaya's tongue met the first atom of countless that shaped his body, he recoiled as his legs instinctively kicked back, sending him and a few floor tiles flying. He kicked back so hard, in fact, that when he hit the wall behind him, the surface of it shattered in a shower of white dust. Somehow. He croaked and mumbled something unintelligible.

Izaya wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smirking behind it. That sort of reaction meant being bold was the most effective way to push Shizuo's buttons, and Izaya would definitely exploit this newfound weakness. "As you so helpfully put it, I could _fuck_ you right here if I felt like it." _A filthy word, but it gets the point across._ He quirked his head, dropping his hand. "Got a problem?"

Once the dust settled, Izaya saw Shizuo rubbing his teeth against his sleeve before grinning. "Yeah, I got one problem alright."

"Do enlighten me."

"You'd break your pelvis, guaranteed."

He laughed, his eyes laughing with him all the while. "Then don't tempt me with your numerous taunts of my attraction to you."

"Look, you can't blame a guy for telling the truth, and besides, didn't I say I'd be top?"

An incredulous huff, yet his voice had lowered into a smooth, contemptuous purr. "Debatable. I'm glad that tidbit stuck in your memory. The image in your head lives on."

 _Yeah, like you'd be top. Wait… why am I even…_ "The same can be said about you, you know."

"Well, I _was_ the one that kissed you for the third time, sober and smug as always." Izaya tapped his own lips three times to drive in the point before offering a one-shouldered shrug. "That shouldn't surprise you."

Shizuo looked up and narrowed his eyes at the other, grin stubbornly sedentary. "You want to give me another peck on the lips, I-za-ya- _kun_?"

His eye half-lidded, watching the other intently. Oh, he would make sure Shizuo knew just how far he would go to take advantage the blond's discomfort. "If it makes you squirm like that, then I'd be more than happy to oblige, Shi-zu- _chan_."

"Don't I just _live_ to-"

Abruptly, the second door had popped open, with a helpful sign indicating that Shizuo would have to continue onwards.

The blond looked towards the door and got up. With a glance he read over the sign, "Shizuo Heiwajima only," he echoed as he furrowed his eyebrows. Only him, and not Izaya. What were they planning…? Abruptly, he felt a dull sense of an encouraging slap on his back. That annoying ability of Izaya's to sneak up on anyone without them noticing didn't seem to fade after losing a leg. And an eye. And a wrist. And another wrist, actually. _The injuries just keep piling on, huh?_ _Yet I don't have a scratch on me._..

"Thanks for the pat on the back. Really gives me the motivation I need." Flat and loaded with copious amounts of sarcasm.

"Always happy to help," Izaya offered dryly before slinking away to sit at the table and eat bits of their unfinished meal. It was better to listen to the kidnapper's instructions rather than face repercussions. He'd had enough of _those_ to last a lifetime."Now I'm not sure how much value my predictions have to you…" He trailed off, clearly waiting for the other to supply him with the attention he deserved.

Shizuo turned his head to face the other, eyebrow raised in mock curiosity. "Yes, Izaya?" he asked, faint irritation etched into his words.

"Ask nicely, beastling." His words were patronizing the way a mother scolded a child for touching something they shouldn't have.

The 'beastling' rolled his eyes, clearly not in the mood to play the other's game. "Yes, Izaya-senpai, with fatty tuna cake on top?"

That earned Shizuo a dubious raise of his eyebrows, but 'Izaya-senpai' continued nonetheless. "The last time we were separated, I lost an eye while _you_ played a game that made _me_ lose it, most likely. I figure it's time I return the favor." His face was peculiarly blank save for a thin, lazy amusement layered on top, as though he didn't bother to properly solder the mask to his face.

Silence. It was almost as if Shizuo was trying to decipher Izaya's expression before he spoke. "What limb do you think is gonna be on the chopping block?" Though there were still traces of irritation, his voice sombered down significantly.

"Well I wouldn't say a leg or an eye, that's for sure. They don't seem to enjoy repeating themselves." Complete nonchalance, even as his eyes hardened. "An arm maybe. Your ear or tongue if they're feeling creative. Your dick if they want to contribute to this running joke of theirs. What would you prefer?"

More dry laughter. "Keep it PG for the kids." A small curve on the blond's face as he found his own words a bit funny, even if Izaya's words hold true. One can't tell what the next event could be, especially with the… interesting person or people that are keeping them captive.

"I suppose I'll be what stands between you and losing a limb." Izaya's voice had quietened slightly, tone flattening into indifference. "And I'll do whatever it takes to ensure that it gets stolen from you in the most agonizing way possible."

A flash of teeth from Shizuo. "Here's your chance to enjoy yourself." When those words left his mouth, he turned on his heel and began to walk, stopping right before he could round the corner.

"By the way, Izaya?" He called out, voice suddenly normalizing as his fingers trailed along the wall.

No reaction, aside from a lift of his head to indicate that he was listening.

"If you aren't going to kill me, make me _suffer_."

Then a few more steps, and he was gone, the door sealing shut behind him.

* * *

Yes, he was back here again, in the confines of this maze where the two were trapped here together, running out of oxygen, and so, so close to the edge. There was no raven-haired human to greet him, or throw quips and jabs and metaphors and speeches from obscure philosophers. It was just him and the solace of metal built to fuel the worst emotion of people, the emotion that drove those sufficiently under its spell insane.

Fear.

As he went upon dead-ends and long hallways and such things that only served to waste his time, his pace was slower than that of when he was trying to bust out of this place like his life depended on it. Well, it _did_ , but now it felt like his steps were sluggish, as if he meant to prolong his time here. He wasn't sure if he was intentionally doing it or if it was the thin air that infiltrated his mind and subsequently altered his thoughts to suit something of a more irrational taste, and yet he couldn't find it in himself to hurry.

He wondered _just where is this voice_ that was, oh-so-omnipresent and all-seeing. Perhaps there were cameras implanted in the walls, so tiny and well-hidden that it's as if they were never there. Well, if they _were_ there to begin with. They likely were, he concluded. Why waste an opportunity on watching him lumber around?

Shizuo didn't truly know how long this place stretched on for. Sometimes it felt like he was walking around the Earth, travelling its circumference only to seem like he made no distance whatsoever. The layout of this maze did him no favours - everything was so confusing and convoluted and ridiculous that he really wondered just how the _hell_ he made it out of there with Izaya in tow.

Speaking of, he wondered if said informant could see him. Look at him, watch him as he travelled like someone crossing the Sahara desert. His impatience was slowly whittling away his nerves. Just _when_ the hell would it happen, _what_ 's gonna happen, and _where_ is it gonna happen? Obviously he didn't have to answer _who_ and _why_ \- the answers were fairly obvious at that point.

An unknown period of time passed. The path that Shizuo took found itself to be another dead end. This one led into a hexagonal-shaped room, however. Instantly his suspicions rose and as soon as he turned around, he met face to face with a wall slamming closed in front of him, falling down from the ceiling, and the lights cut out in a click. _What?_

Small holes opened up from above, and steady streams of water began to pour through, quickly building up as more and more began to speckle the walls like pores. It soaked his feet, his ankles, going up his legs as the blond looked around for anything that could pull him out of this situation. Nothing.

 _Is this it?_

The water rushed more and more, reaching up to his shins, then passing his knees. It became hard to wade through so much liquid that Shizuo was simply lost on what to do. There wasn't any way out of this, as far as he could tell. This wouldn't be like any of the cliche movies.

The water reached his thighs.

 _I guess this is it. Not with a bang, but with a whimper._

It touched his hips.

It was ice-cold, but it only felt like there was some mild pressure being put on his legs. That's all it felt like. Pressure. Yet the water would reach to the point where he couldn't swim away, and then…

It dampened his stomach.

 _Shit,_ he thought humorously as a sort of way to cope with the notion of… dying. _I don't think this is called breaking a leg._

It soaked through his chest.

He felt the pressure now, how his lungs protested at this sudden change of environment. His thoughts began to muddle, and he grimaced, back slamming against one of the walls as he closed his eyes. _Don't think. Don't think,_ he repeated, a mantra that served to try and steel the remaining of his frayed nerves.

It pressed against his throat.

 _Don't think don't think don't think._

It went above and beyond his head, engulfing him in water. He began to float, and slowly but surely, his lungs would give out. He couldn't keep this up forever. _Don't think,_ he repeated. This time it felt more like a child repeating their name their parents just told them, or a parrot parroting what they overheard in a discussion between strangers.

The water reached the top, and soon after he opened his mouth and let out a cry, one that was muffled under the endless water that rushed into him. Direction was lost. He didn't know right from left, up from down, for everything he saw was an all-encompassing murkiness that burned his lungs, burned his entire body in so much pain. It hurt more than anything he could ever think of, and his mind was breaking apart, cracking and fading away into nothingness. The last vestiges of light were dimming, and he was dragged into a tunnel of darkness.

 _Just don't think. It'll be over soon. Just don't think._

 _Just don't think._

 _Just..._

 _don't…_

… _think_...

* * *

There was little Izaya could do to pass the time aside from popping chocolate truffles in his mouth as he splayed out on the bed in a mixture of pain and idleness.

He felt the lack of Shizuo's presence like an ache in his side, one he didn't hope to understand. It wasn't the sort of throb that meant boredom. It was something more akin to loneliness, yet a bit warmer, a bit harsher. Loneliness he could meet in the eye, dare it to plague him. Whatever _this_ was, he couldn't place it, didn't even know what he would be looking at to challenge it. Altogether, it felt like a punch in the gut, something he decided he had experienced too much in his lifetime.

Izaya never liked the quiet. It left room in his head for doubts to sprout like weeds, that his drunken spiels had some truth to them. What mindless drivel had he said?

' _People_ cheat _for love, they_ kill _for love, they wage_ wars _for love. You think anyone would start a war for me out of love and not manipulation?'_

He knew all people craved companionship, longed for a partner that would understand them, would hold hands with them and love them, whisper nonsense into their ears to console them, and ultimately cowed them. It turned them into the most interesting human who drooled like a dog yet held a knife behind their back. Love was quick to blur into hatred, overlapping in a way that they couldn't differentiate between them. Emotions, after all, weren't quite so black and white as they were often made out to be, but an entire spectrum. Izaya wasn't weak enough to succumb to the ridiculous notion of love, and yet he was capable of feeling animosity. He was capable of lamenting about it when he was teetering towards drunkenness, where… where more simple truths were spoken. Love and hate, an apparent dichotomy, were both born out of a dependency to someone for one reason or the other. Izaya's reliance before this entire fiasco had been purely entertainment, but now it shifted to survival. Companionship, even, as he had said before.

Because, as it turned out, they hadn't been pinned together, pushed towards each other with crude jokes and repulsive implications, _just_ to exploit their dependence on one another later on in the game. That was merely a bonus.

The main purpose was so that they would retain their sanity, just as a man being tortured would be asked to count backwards from 1000 by sevens. Izaya knew better than everyone how brain-numbing it was to play with a broken toy.

He had always known this reason, always had the prospect lurking at the back of his mind, and for once he allowed himself to acknowledge it.

Belatedly, he realized Shizuo had never told him what drunken Izaya wanted sober Izaya to know, and perhaps it was for the better. As an informant and lover of humanity, he knew that drunkenness more often than not revealed simple truths, and a large part of him never wanted to discover what they were. Yes, he was a coward, but he _did_ say he was in love with his own cowardice.

Shizuo's parting words rose to his thoughts unbidden.

' _Here's a chance to enjoy yourself.'_

Would he...? Yes, yes, of _course_ he would. It was payback without consequence, it was breaking the beast like he had always planned he would ever since he had his leg stolen from him, it was getting everything he had ever hoped for back in Tokyo. And yet, while the drive was there, it had weakened considerably to something resembling tolerance considering his acceptance that they needed each other, but he was _sure_ it would return once the full reality of whatever predicament Shizuo would be in would sink in.

After all, he didn't need Shizuo whole.

' _By the way, Izaya? If you aren't going to kill me, make me_ suffer.'

That puzzled him, as common ground with the beast always did. Had Shizuo's self-loathing and guilt truly reached the point where he made such demands?

Exhaling, he stood, glaring at the doors and the alcohol bottles and the notecard and the sea in turn as if each of them had personally offended him. Abruptly, his muscles stiffened. _A notecard, a bottle, the sea._ It would be futile, but it would mean something at least. The first two materials were gathered in his lap, yet he was still missing something vital. Ink.

While his stomach had already started to turn at his train of thought, he undid the ribbon binding his wrist, wincing as bits of the forming scab came apart with the bandage, before turning his gaze towards the crisp white of the notecard. Clenching his fist, he dug his nail into the healing flesh and began to write in scrawled script.

Once the message was complete, the bottle was opened, allowing the putrid scent of alcohol to escape as its contents were poured over his wrist, then into the sea. With trembling fingers that left bloodied imprints, he tucked the message inside and resealed the bottle.

"Here's to hoping," he muttered underneath his breath, just as he flung his hope as far as he could to disappear into the sea.

A couple hours had passed before the door Shizuo had left through finally reopened, and Izaya took that as his cue to leave. He had bundled up whatever he could take with him in one of the pillow cases, after gutting it with the utensil they had so helpfully provided him. It was the same utensil he heated over the flickering flame of a candle to cauterize the injury in his wrist, the same one he had tucked into his cast for safekeeping. Shizuo's remained at his hip, supported by his waistband, but he doubted he'd be able to withdraw it quickly enough considering how he now carried a candle in his hands. With a final glance at the sea, he treaded into familiar white halls, following the turns they took with a subdued acceptance.

They eventually cut off rather awkwardly, leading into a room that yawned outward with a darkness so complete that he could hardly make out where it ended. When his entrance shut behind him, it was only the waning light of the candle in his hand that stood out among the murky shapes around him. A cool bead of sweat trailed down his neck as he tried to assure himself that his predictions were accurate, that for once, he was safe. He rotated around, walking backwards this time, and he was suddenly reminded of one of the first days they were here, Shizuo chained to the ground like the monster he was, and for a moment, he could remember hands closing over his throat, clenching tighter and tighter until his blurring vision erupted with fire.

When he had woken up from his unconsciousness, he was missing a leg.

Abruptly, his back met something cold and damp, a discreet sort of heat radiating from it as it shifted back and forth in repetitive patterns, almost as though it were...breathing… Instinct had him fumbling for his knife, pressing it against whomever this was, at least until the dim light of flames caught at brilliantly bright hair.

A few wet coughs erupted from the blond man, sounding painful and hoarse, but he didn't seem to rouse... yet.

Izaya lifted the candle to the other's face, watching trails of water drip from his bangs to trickle down his skin. He was taller than the raven remembered, and toeing along the base of what Shizuo was strapped upon produced the clang of metal. "Nearly drowned, did you?" he stated to no one in particular, tensing slightly with how his voice carried. He pulled away from Shizuo and tucked his knife back against his hip before casting the light on the contraption. Out of his reach, gears glinted as light scintillated of its surface, right next to what appeared to be a guillotine positioned just to the right of the unconscious victim. Izaya trailed a hand down Shizuo's right arm, feeling for the bump of manacles over his wrist that were attached to a metal rod.

Izaya lifted the candle above his head, watching where the bit was slotted into a ridge that ran the entire length of the contraption. A slight push of the rod had it sliding to another rib, lifting Shizuo's limp limb slightly along with it. He blinked slowly in understanding, taking a step back. _Oh. Oh, I see._

A groan escaped the blond's lips as he ground his teeth together. Another wet cough echoed throughout the room, and slowly, his eyes opened. His first words - muddled just after having his lungs _filled to the brim_ with water and his last thoughts being, well… not to think. - was, "What the fuck..."

Shizuo's eyes dragged across the room and he noticed how he was strapped to something. The raven was in front of him too. _Fuck. I'm alive, and the bastards already got me chained in whatever the hell this is_ , he thought, _and look who's here too_. "Well?" He asked, tired, groggy, irritated, waiting for an answer from the other.

"The beast awakens," Izaya cooed, voice startlingly gentle. "But can he guess?"

"No, I don't want to guess. Just fucking tell me."

His lips pursed, almost like he wanted to continue playing the game of cat and mouse before conceding very pleasantly, "Well, you're going to lose an arm by either having it ripped off or lopped off."

The blond grimaced as he dipped his head down to look at the floor, deciding that he'd rather not show his face to the other. "Anything else to add?"

Izaya opened his mouth to speak before abruptly, the machine whirred to life in the disjointed clanking of metal and gears. An automated voice that seemed to emanate the walls stated a simple, random word - " **Four."** As if in reply, the contraption began to tick with the drone of clockwork. The raven counted the beats under his breath, and when he reached fifteen, the rod slid up two notches.

" **Four, one."**

"Nngh… what the hell am I chained to… ?" Shizuo asked, irritated as he tried to pull his right arm. The rest of his bindings were loose enough that he could bend his knees down slightly and swivel his neck and off-arm around, yet the manacles on his right wouldn't budge.

Izaya quirked his head in thought before ultimately parroting, "Four, one."

The ticks reset, and he was met with an addition to the string of numbers - 2. A memory game. His lips twitched once as he crossed his arms and took a step forward, appraising the machine. "Four, one, eight." The grind of gears as Shizuo's arm was lifted further up.

He turned his head to said limb. This was how they were going to play? The most drawn out, violent, painful way. _Fitting_ , he thought, but he certainly had his fair share of pain already dealt with as is. "So they want to rip my arm off," the blond dully noted. He didn't very much catch what the last number was, but Izaya's evident amusement told him.

 **4121.**

"It seems simple enough." Izaya trailed his hand along the rod, bumping it up one rib for good measure. "Find a way to shutdown the machine while having a pleasant ten seconds to repeat the sequence. 4120." Up another two, leaving Shizuo's wrist in line with his hips. Oh, he was going to enjoy this. The only reason why he'd actually put in effort is if Shizuo _begged_ him, which was why he decided to at least memorize it if it came to that. "Get it wrong or run out of time, and you're that much closer."

… _And this is the point of no return_. God _I look stupid._ Shizuo was silent. There wasn't a point to give the other any more amusement, and he'd never stoop to his level. This was his punishment, he thought, even though it was entertainment for his kidnappers. What did they call them? Snuff films? Something like those.

 **4121W.**

"A _letter_ now. I'm impressed," Izaya mocked, more to goad the blond into realizing who had the power here. Or well, a semblance of it at least. "Does Shizu-chan know his English ABC's? 4121M."

Truth be told, Shizuo had subpar knowledge of English. Sure, he knew the letters, but his extent would probably reach up to some half-baked everyday conversation that would be difficult to understand. Slowly the gears turned with each intentional mistake of Izaya's, and it'd reach a tipping point. They were far from it, but he'd be hard-pressed to imagine that the raven would let up.

 **4121W708K4ND.**

At this point, Izaya had sat down cross-legged, passing his hands over the waning candle in a mixture of blatant boredom, twisted satisfaction, and casualness.. Soon, it would gutter underneath the melting wax, leaving them in an all-consuming darkness. "I'm curious; when will you ask me to help you? One more mistake before it starts to pull your arm from its socket." He appeared thoroughly pleased by this fact, like a cat being stroked underneath its neck. From here, Izaya couldn't make out the other's expression, and that was enough for that peculiar ache in his side to return.

Shizuo's body swayed left and right very subtly, as if he was considering a reply. He did not, and he didn't seem keen on doing so either.

The raven inadvertently missed his turn this time during his wait in anticipation of what the blond had to say.

 **4121W708K4NDN.**

While Izaya had a memory far stronger than the average human considering his line of work, he knew that at some point, the alphanumerical sequence would blur together, and no amount of focus would be allow him to remember anything beyond thirty odd letters and numbers. "You're running out of time, you know. Give me a reason to jam the machine." A chill wound down his spine as the machine jostled, starting to apply the faintest of pressure on Shizuo's arm.

Like he was going to play his fucking game. He already gave Izaya the pleasure to rip out his arm, why pour unnecessary salt?

 **4121W708K4NDNN…**

Something akin to a tug on the arm.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P…**

It was starting to get more than just uncomfortable.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4…**

Shizuo stiffened, and he let out a grunt of pain as he grimaced, the complete antithesis of the pleased upturn of the raven's lips.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43.**

"Tick, tock, tick, tock." Izaya's smirk had fallen ever-so-slightly, his brows dipping down. He wasn't sure why he wasn't enjoying this as much as he expected it had, as much as the Izaya before this entire fiasco would have. "Play my game, I jam the machine, and you keep your arm."

The only answer was Shizuo's heavy, dogged breathing.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43S.**

"Shizu-chan."

"Why…" Shizuo panted, "If I even wanted to… why would… I trust you…"

The raven lifted his chin, for once resembling one of the most dangerous men in Ikebukuro in that one show of arrogance. "4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43S." His tone was even, yet judging by how his smirk started to crease at the corner, his memory was straining even as he turned the sequence over and over in his head.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ.**

"I'm not…" A pause, and another groan came out of it. "Playing… your ff… f… fff… fucking…" He ground his teeth together and shut his eyes tight, chest tight as the pain in his arm coursed through his body. It hurt so much. The skin around his wrist had chafed, fissured open, and drizzled red.

The raven's gaze caught at the droplets, shifting to Shizuo's face. His fingers clenched in his lap. He had his leg amputated and acid dripped into his eye with the help of the monster in front of him. It was only fair that Shizuo would face repercussions, and even then, it wouldn't make up for what he had done. While this must have been _certainty,_ a _truth_ he had accepted since the day they met, unease gripped his chest in emotional ambivalence.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK.**

His body shook and he let out a yell of pain, screaming, "Fuck, FUCK!" Tremors began to run down the length of his arm as his muscles strained against his bonds in protest. A fire that had built up ever since that rod began in its progress to brutally tear bone from socket turned into hot coals pressing against the inside of his shoulder. It was enough to make his vision blur, yet not enough for it to blacken out.

Before Izaya could think much of it, he had stood, hands twitching at his sides as he approached the other. The time that had passed was enough for him to have figured out a plan on how to get up to those gears and what to jam it with, but that required using Shizuo as a human stepladder with what Izaya's injured wrists unable to bear his bodyweight. "4121W708K4…" His eyes squinted shut for a moment. "NDNN01P14Y...M4K43SJ4CK. Bend your knees and lift your left arm as far as it can go in front of you."

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4.**

Through Shizuo's thrashing and cries of pain, he managed to barely make out the raven's words. His vision was was just barely coherent, let alone his hearing as so much was occupied by that searing pain. Nonetheless, he did as was told, and there was enough space for Izaya to stand on.

"4121W708K-" A soft grunt as Izaya braced his hands on Shizuo's shoulders and lifted his foot onto his knee. It trembled so much beneath him that the raven struggled to maintain balance when his metal foot was lifted off the floor. "-4NDNN01P14-" Then came shifting his leg onto the arm as he continued to rattle on the sequence. "-YM4K43SJ4…"

 _Tick. Tick. Tick._

He couldn't remember. The remainder of it was so tantalizingly close, and yet he could not grasp it with what the blond shaking like a leaf and the searing pain in his wrists.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D.**

Shizuo's cries turned into agonized screams, and his consciousness was rapidly fading away with each passing moment. He felt something familiar coursing through him, something that felt similar to when he was drowning - it was the sort of pain that was tangible, a fire he choked on and scorched his throat, the straining of his lungs in an attempt to draw in air, a blackness dancing in his vision like eddying water.

"Come _ON_ ," he yelled, and he wasn't sure himself if he was talking about the pain, Izaya, himself, a mix of two, or all three at the same time.

Izaya had very nearly slipped when the other convulsed beneath him in unison with the grinding of gears, yet he just managed to hold on. Having given up on trying to remember the sequence, he pressed himself up from Shizuo's shoulders onto cool metal.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D2.**

He was shimmying up, fumbling for the knife through the darkness broken by a waning candlelight.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D2U1.**

He was jamming in the knife between the gears, flinching back when the next rotation of them had shattered the utensil into metallic shards.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D2U11.**

He was switching tactics, attempting to pry out the smallest gear with the other knife.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D2U11B.**

The candle went out.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D2U11B0.**

Muscle started to tear.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D2U11B0E.**

The gear popped out, descending into the darkness with little _clinks_ that were lost in screams. It skittered along the ground, rolling along its axis before falling flat.

 **4121W708K4NDNN01P14YM4K43SJ4CK4D2U11B0EY.**

The guillotine fell, and the screams fell silent.

Shizuo was unconscious.

The bindings had unlatched, allowing him to land forward in a pool of his own making as shredded paper rained from the ceiling.

Pale fingers caught one in the air before they would be wet with blood.

' **41** 2 **1 W** 7 **08K 4ND** N **N0** 1 **P14Y M4K** 4 **3S J4CK 4 D** 2 **U11 B0** E **Y.'**

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

A white-knuckled fist clenched over the taunt.

* * *

 **A/N: Can I just say that we live for your reviews like bless everyone here 3**

Little bit of background on the chapter title~  
"Mary Mary, quite contrary  
How does your garden grow?  
With silver bells and cockelshells  
And pretty maids all in a row."  
The Mary here alludes to the Queen Mary Tudor, better known as 'Bloody Mary.' The garden represents a graveyard that grew with the dead who continued to adhere to the Protestant faith while the crown called for Catholicism. Silver bells, cockelshells, and maids are all names for torture equipment - the first was a nickname for thumbscrews, the second was a torture device attached to the genitals, and the third was a device to behead people in a manner similar to a guillotine.


	21. To Love, A Beast

**To Love, A Beast.**

It didn't take long for medical assistance to arrive. Strobe lights flooded the room, illuminating the two, and with it came men and women clad in white. Izaya made no move to greet them, simply jerked his head up for his gaze to follow them as they shuffled around. A team lifted Shizuo onto a stretcher while another carefully wrapped the disembodied limb in cloth. One placed a hand on Izaya's shoulder, and the raven didn't move to shake it off. He was led to a room with a glass wall showcasing the doctors working on sealing the blond's gaping wound and slowing the bleeding. He was only dimly aware of being stripped down completely and forced to lay down on a metal table as his injuries were checked and treated. His stump and fractured wrist, it seemed, were faring well since his last meeting with them. On the other hand, his recently injured wrist trapped in some infection, and his eye…

It wasn't pretty.

While he waited, bare back flush against uncompromising metal, he uncurled his hand to reveal the rumpled slip of paper and taunting words.

It was an English proverb, one that had a mixture of anger and admiration rising within him - anger from the taunt, and admiration for its cleverness that would be on par with something Izaya could have come up with.

' _All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy.'_

 _How fitting._

Yet how careless of him to not notice. It should have been clear save for the random numbers and letters sprinkled about to throw him off, and yet he never even started on that path for it to mislead him.

His gaze flitted over the ceiling, along the fluorescent lights, and across the room as needles found their way into his body. Once his eye was bandaged, they pulled him up into a seated position. Sponges were worked along every crevice, curving over his prominent ribs, arcing against the slant of his spine while an electric razor ran along his head. Muddy water trailed down his chest and drizzled onto the floor as matted black strands of hair fell around him like a halo. Izaya turned the paper over in his hands once - twice.

27 N, 142 E.

The coordinates, at least, he had seen immediately, and that gave him enough of an idea to know that they weren't quite far off from Japan's southern coast.

But it didn't matter, did it?

It was yet another facet to a cruel joke, one he would have enjoyed laughing at if he were on the other side. The only way out of this game was death, and he had a couple too many limbs left to consider stealing the endgame for himself. It _was_ an oddly enticing prospect, but…

He gradually released the breath he was holding, the air whistling out from in between his teeth as the doctors filed out of the room from one of the three doors - the second was where they had entered from, and the third was where he expected to progress. However, as he ran his fingers through hair too short and eased out each breath like it was his last, he found himself grasping onto this tentative peace.

Across from him, Shizuo was wheeled out of the room in a similar state of undress, and he bit his lip in thought. His previous prediction was accurate enough, yet now, he wasn't sure what to expect. His eyebrow twitched in irritation, mouth curving downward. It was another reminder that he had no power in this game - mere influence in the direction it takes. At the start of this, his weaknesses, even though they well-hidden beneath layers of facade, were exploited, poked and prodded at until they thrived and festered like open wounds swarming with maggots. Like all injuries, they seal, however messily, but while a flimsy gnarled layer of skin covers it, it simply allows for another injury to appear elsewhere, another glaring weakness in integrity, another opening to take its place.

Skin becomes weaker and weaker as more wounds mottle its surface, and their toll becomes heavier and heavier until it can no longer handle the burden.

It appeared that the freshest cut was inflicted upon himself through Shizuo.

Trying to understand it was like trying to find a black cat in a dark room, except there was no cat. Yet no matter how he may bail water, no matter how good he was at it, there was still a hole in his ship - and the first law of holes? When in one, stop digging.

Eventually, he stood, wavering on his legs for a couple beats before padding down the hall. It opened up into a small room where one side tapered off into a chasm, the other displayed a screen, and at the center lay a prone brunette form face-down. Bare feet scuffed along gritty sandpaper floor, and just as it had been when he came across Shizuo strapped to that grotesque machine, he knew with cold certainty what this next trial would be. The raven first approached the edge, peering down into what must have been underground caves judging by the faint trickling of water. Falling down would have one expect to be broken upon stone, and surviving it would mean frigid water and an encapsulating darkness, so those must be pleasant alternatives to going through with what the gamemasters planned.

Finally, Izaya approached Shizuo and knelt down next to him. Where his arm must have been was instead wrapped thickly in gauze, and his gaze lingered there longer than necessary. When the roles had been reversed, when it had been _his_ leg that missed its continuation, he imagined the brute must have felt guilt, the type that had you drowning on air too thin, even when it was felt towards a man you hated for a decade. _Hated…_

Izaya without his leg compromised his mobility, and Shizuo without his arm compromised his strength. What was it called… equivalent exchange?

Like the raven, the blond strands were cropped down to their brown roots. He tilted Shizuo's face to the side and flicked his forehead once, then twice, before pursing his lips at the lack of reaction. "Nice to see you're still alive," he muttered under his breath, just as the floor jerked beneath them.

It took a surprisingly small amount of hesitation for him to lift the monster onto his shoulders, wincing underneath the weight as he shuffled forward against the movement of the floor. He helped the brute last time; he could help him once more. The timer in front of him burst to life in a countdown from 24:00.

A room built like a conveyer belt with sandpaper for the floor to eat through the flesh of one's feet to be endured for an entire day, without the solace of any clothing to act as a buffer - he had to admit, he was impressed.

Having the male draped across his back, feeling the soft easy pants stir his hair, experiencing the other's inexplicable warmth beyond that of an average person - it all brought back the very first night they were brought here. Shizuo, who couldn't move, pitted with him in a cage where the informant had been weary of toeing the line separating them. It had been raining outside, just like he could hear the faraway echoes of dripping water. He had been carrying him, ready to jump from the shifting floor of the truck onto asphalt.

There, they made a truce. There, while they were thrust into an unfamiliar situation, they had remained the people they were.

Now? It may appear to parallel that situation, but he couldn't imagine returning to that time of easy bickering.

A breath, then two.

"Here we go, Shizu-chan."

* * *

23:00.

His foot had started to chafe, and knots of tension tightened his body as he ambled forward.

22:00.

He keeled over underneath Shizuo's weight, rivulets of sweat darkening the grit of the floor as the brunette slid off his back.

21:00.

He began to value each step taken with his metal foot when the motion of the floor sped up.

20:00.

Blooded imprints were left on the floor. Shizuo was growing almost too heavy for him to bear.

19:00.

The blood was enough for his foot to turn sticky, clinging to the ground like molasses. To distract himself, he recounted his fondest memories, his favorite experiences with people, and when that had grown too much to grasp onto, he simply hummed obscure tunes underneath his breath to the rhythm of his steps.

18:00.

 _One, two. One, two. One, two._ A simple rhythm, now made faster as the ground accelerated, and a simple cadence to the melody of squelching and hollow-sounding steps and lilt of a soft voice.

17:00.

* * *

It was cold.

It was so, _so cold. I'm freezing, and it's so goddamn cold._

He wandered the forest for what felt like an eternity. There was no life whispering between the trees, but that didn't stop him from calling out.

"Hello?" His voice was hoarse, his body tired and shivering. "Is there anybody out there? Hello? Is there anybody out there?"

His feet accidentally caught against a block in the road, and he tripped, falling forward only to slam his shoulder into a tree, shaking it violently as a few leaves fell to the ground. Shizuo grasped one and felt its texture before it crumbled in the grasp of his fingers, as though it were no more than ash. He looked up at the sky, and there wasn't one star in sight, no glow to be found.

Shizuo watched the pitch black darkness, soft breaths forming in the air before he moved away from the tree and began his call once again. "Hello? Is there anybody out there? Hello…"

Suddenly, he blinked and stood in his tracks, looking left and right as he found more and more trees that stretched out endlessly. "Is there… anybody…" He couldn't recall how many times he had repeated this same sentence over and over, searching for someone, _anyone_ , so that he wouldn't be alone in this black forest. How did he even get here? Where was Japan? Where was Ikebukuro? Where was I-

The last question had been subsequently lopped off as a menacing giggle was heard, and between the trees a pale figure danced effortlessly, unabated by the biting cold while it grew closer and closer.

Instinctively, Shizuo withdrew a foot back, balling his fists up as he watched this strange creature dance. When it got within enough distance, he was able to recognize just what - or _who_ \- it was. "Izaya," he muttered through gritted teeth and a tightened jaw.

The figure was silent as it twirled around a tree and stared at the other with a small, sly smile. It had unnaturally pale skin, and its hair was a shade darker than black, as though it drew in all the light around it. An incline of its head made way for a grin while it remained silent.

The tension that Shizuo felt expanded leaps and bounds with every second that passed. "What?" He asked, voice wary and distrusting. "What is it?"

"Do me a favour," the figure whispered before it vanished.

A moment of disbelief passed before impossibly cold fingers brushed against the skin underneath his shoulder and another around his neck. It burned, as if he were touching the sun, before nails began to dig into the flesh of his arm. Pain ignited, so overwhelming in its nature that Shizuo's only instinct was to scream as he dropped to his knees, attempting to tear away the apparition's grasp away from him, yet the energy from his body was washed away.

Spots danced in his vision while cold blood ran down his dominant arm, the figure letting out another giggle as fingers ripped apart skin, flesh, and crushed bone into dust. Shizuo's body spasmed before going limp. Those same fingers satisfactorily slipped away, blood dripping off one of the creature's hands while it stood tall over the body growing cold in the snow.

"And suffer."

* * *

When Shizuo had roused, the remnants of his dreams were already chased away by the waking nightmare, and all he could feel was something that was not there. Just like a hallucination, it was only tricks of the mind made for viciousness. He felt lethargic, his entire body leaden with the lull of rest attempting to drag him back down, and he would have let it had it not been for the discomforting absence of pain. Where his arm originally was, it was replaced by a limb of gauze. He tried to move it, but in lieu of what he wanted, what he got was a pathetic nudge of a numb stump.

His mind began to echo with thoughts, and he could already feel the pressure in the back of his head. Where there used to be a tangible mass of flesh and bone covered in skin, there was nothing. _It's gone. It's really gone this time and it's not coming back._

It was as if he could see an invisible outline of what used to be, non-existent fingers wrapping over his palm and skin creasing, yet he knew it was a lie. The brunette didn't want to think how this would affect him in the short-term - as there was not going to be a long-term. With a crucial limb gone, he had practically turned into a human baseball bat.

His eyes followed the trail of blood, leading up and up into a chasm of abyssal darkness. The other arm, the one that still remained, was draped around bare, slim, and bony shoulders, of which he already knew who they belonged to. He was able to get a good look at the other's body - decrepit and starving.

 _A leg for an arm._

The blood from Izaya's ruined soles trailed down and covered his own leg in crimson as he tuned into the raven's humming. He looked down and examined himself. The skin on the front of his lower legs was a raw red, the result of being dragged across the sandpaper for hours on end. For anyone else, the skin would have been long gone, but Shizuo wasn't anyone else.

 _It's like it's there,_ he mused, _but it's not._ "Hey," the brunette near-whispered, throat sore as he talked. "Izaya?"

At first, the only sign that the raven heard him was the minute lift of his head, before he stated, "Rise and shine."

A few seconds of silence passed as Shizuo tried to recollect his thoughts, opening his mouth and closing it repeatedly as he tried to pick a few words to cobble together to form a sentence. _Who knows where those sick fucks took my arm and what they're planning to do with it._ "I'm… awake. Where are we?"

Ever so slightly, Izaya was trembling underneath him, a motion that would have gone unnoticed had it not been for him taking the effort to speak. "An island south of Japan, apparently." His voice was clear, syllables rolling out of his mouth with the smoothness of water. Not animated, yet not without inflection.

"South of Japan," the brunette mumbled quietly, echoing what Izaya had said. "That's…" _A taunt. A reminder of how we're stuck here._ "Can you pull me up?" He asked, actively deciding not to think about that fact.

Izaya complied, straightening to allow the other to stand and withdrawing his hands from the other's arm. However, as soon as Shizuo's weight was off his back, he slumped forward, eyes clenching shut as the world momentarily devolved into smears of color. Distinct lines of tension corded his back as he inhaled slow, deep breaths.

It was like Shizuo woke up exactly at the point where the raven was just about to collapse. "You okay?" He asked, body tensing as he prepared himself to catch Izaya should he fall.

"I'm touched by your concern." There was a heaviness in his limbs that gently whispered into his ears to stop and rest, but he took another lethargic, dragging step, biting his lip against the fire in his foot.

An intake of breath or two as Shizuo looked at the white wrappings of gauze, the pain - or lack thereof - still there, before looking back to the informant. "You tried to jam the machine." A beat passed, and he added on, "I think."

"I did," Izaya confirmed, not turning around to address Shizuo as he spoke. "Though as soon as I turned it off, you were offered the mercy of losing your arm to a blade rather than having it painstakingly ripped out. A pity." Despite the nature of his words, it lacked the caustic bite.

The brunette sighed and instinctively tried to ball a fist on his phantom arm but winced quietly instead. "I don't want a repeat conversation, so at least try to match up your words with how you feel."

"Talking about my inebriation?" he stated dryly. "I didn't think you'd still be caught over whatever ridiculous things I said when you have just lost your dominant arm."

 _I guess we're…_ _no, we're not._

"You know, spending all this time walking aimlessly without your _wonderful_ company reminded me of a time where I had the pleasure of watching drunkenness live. It really is something watching a human who had passed out suddenly awaken and make for the bathroom, crawling like a demented crab. This was after I watched him flirt with his own plate..." Izaya continued to prattle on and on, switching from one topic to the next, expertly redirecting the conversation elsewhere. His steps continued to drag, fatigue becoming more and more evident with the slight slurring of words and hitching of his breath.

A while into the raven's chirpy ramblings, Shizuo's ears automatically tuned out his words, and he entered his own world of thought. Looking down at the sandpaper as his feet took one step after another, his mind wandered back to the questions posed by him from when, courtesy of Izaya being a lightweight, he received answers he wasn't sure he wanted to receive.

"I remember that I asked you if you hated me, and you took a moment before saying yes," he suddenly interrupted, head bobbing up to look at Izaya. "Then I asked you if you loved me, and you laughed before drinking." In front of him, Izaya had stiffened, but the brunette pressed on, no emotion being betrayed on his face as he continued to speak shamelessly. "I asked, 'Do you still want to kill me?' and at first you didn't answer. You talked about roses and how you never experienced how it's like to be a human being, and I had to shake you a few times so that you could regain composure of yourself. Then you told me 'No, I don't want to kill you.'" Another noticeable tension in the other as he nearly missed a step, catching himself before he could trip. "I asked, 'Why?' You told me that I killed for you, cheated for you, waged war for you, did all the things no one else would do for you, and you couldn't possibly kill someone like that."

.

.

.

"And?"

A single word spoken in a single breath, dropping like a weight.

"You told me that we're both monsters, and that only monsters belong to each other," he continued, voice still flat and monotone. There wasn't a point in concealing anything anymore. "You love me." Anything. "I don't know how or why because it goes against everything you've worked for your entire life. Before all this, if I died, you would have celebrated around Tokyo, and if you died, I wouldn't have cared, but everything's changed. Everything." At this point, he just wondered how the raven would try to deflect it, turn it into his favor, or try to regain control of the conversation, all old tricks in the book that have long since been used up.

Instead, all he received was, "Too bad."

"I just felt like saying what was on my mind. Just like you did. Do whatever you want. Not like much matters anymore, you know?" He idly ran a hand down the gauze, waiting for what the raven would say, if anything. Maybe a quip or two.

Yet Shizuo was met with silence, and so he took that silence as a sign that the conversation was over - not until Izaya collapsed, at least. The brunette gaze trailed to the ground, watching his feet move along small, crimson footprints. Thought took up residence as the shuffle of feet over grit filled the room, along with the increasingly labored breaths of the informant. Walking ahead of the other, his expression could not be discerned, and perhaps it was for the better.

Abruptly, Izaya faltered, scraping his knees on the ground with his hands shooting out to break his fall. The sole of his foot was a swollen undecipherable mess of red, blood trickling down into the dirt, and Izaya remained there, unmoving as the floor drew him backwards.

 _That's the call_ , Shizuo thought, as he walked forward and wrapped his remaining limb under one of Izaya's arms, pulling him up and leaning him against himself. "Climb on my should-" Forcefully, the raven slipped away from him, only to have a hand shoot out to grasp his arm to keep him from retreating further. "Don't," the brunette said, taking a breath, "do that."

Izaya jerked his arm in another futile attempt to free himself, before finally turning to face the other. There was an electric anger in his gaze, a sort of challenge that once would make Shizuo long to hit him with something heavy like a pick-up truck. " _Clearly_ you plan on doing whatever pleases you," he hissed, lifting his arm in appraisal. "So it appears I don't have much of a choice." They had both stopped, Izaya with his foot hovering slightly above the ground and Shizuo with his shoulders drooping in weariness, caught in this confrontation of cold fury and heated irritation.

"And what do you want me to do?" The other asked as he ground his teeth together, trying to suppress his own anger. "You want me to let you fall to your fucking death?" Another breath was taken, and he let his teeth show in a grimace. "Is that what you want?" Once again he tried to ball up a phantom fist, but he only felt unfamiliar numbness.

"I would settle for _you_ being a less presumptuous simpleton, but it doesn't seem either of us will get what we want." His ire was a living thing - shifting, changing, growing. Watching humans, he knew there was supposed to be something gratifying about shouting in a blind rage until your words ran out, even when the aftermath of telling everyone you hated them and to not come after you wasn't as pleasant. And yet, he could not allow himself to descend completely into it. Anger was useful to an extent; rage made you careless.

"Presumptuous?" He demanded, grip tightening ever so slightly as he took a step forward, just as Izaya reciprocated the gesture. "Then why don't you tell me yourself? Or are you gonna keep silent, and let what I said go without second thought? What's it gonna be?"

The words came easier, quicker, each syllable refining perfectly in his mouth to slip out without any hesitance. "What you said is so far from reality that it _deserves_ to be left without a second thought." The vague pain pressed into his arm went unnoticed; as did the fact that they were gradually nearing the precipice. " _Who_ could possibly learn to _love_ a beast?"

"Then…" His grimace closed up into a frown, and his spine straightened. The brunette's eyebrows relaxed, but traces of irritation were still left in his voice. "Then I hope - and I really hope - that you're right." Unease gripped his chest, uncertainty raising his hackles.

He observed the transformation in the other's features, watching pique simmer down into confusion. "So easily satisfied," Izaya mockingly marveled, tugging at his arm once more. "Go on, get angrier. Your face was designed to express rage and loathing. It doesn't suit it to have any other expression."

Shizuo and the raven were already reaching the end-game, and he didn't see a point in playing into his tricks. The informant's attempts to rile him up only served to annoy him. "Just shut the fuck up, Izaya."

The longer this drew on, the less he was inclined to keep up the draining fury, and the more chinks in the armor appeared. There was a truth at the core of his existence - a yawning emptiness, liberally coated in mockery and charm and facade. It had always been there, and the brute had always been adept at chipping it away. With the events of the past couple weeks, Izaya knew he would have to end this quickly lest his mask fall away all-together at Shizuo recklessly digging into him. "Counterintuitive when it was _you_ who demanded a response to your baseless 'theories.'"

The brunette gave a light shrug. "Well, I guess that now neither of us are obligated to answer each other." He looked to his side and blinked, seeing that the void of darkness now occupied a swath of his vision. "Though you don't have to, it'd be really nice if you got on my shoulder right about now."

Izaya's gaze followed the other's, and he started away a couple steps, gingerly allowing his foot to touch the floor. He wasn't walking anywhere near fast enough to match the pace of the conveyer belt, but he didn't dare want to disgrace himself further after bearing audience to his drunken spiels, especially when they were both so scantily clad. He gave the other a look of reproach, mind spiraling back to the campfire and acidic gas.

The difference between then and now was that Shizuo couldn't forcefully carry him.

His face scrunched up in displeasure and indecision, before the brute startled him with, " _COME ON!"_ Wincing inwardly, Izaya hesitantly wrapped his arms around the other's neck and lifted himself up, just as Shizuo's arm easily slid underneath him to support his weight. Without the recalcitrant raven holding him back, the other easily bound ahead and started walking at an even pace.

The current time was 16:20. That meant they had sixteen hours and twenty minutes remaining to bear each other.

Blood continued to drizzle down Izaya's feet, dripping along Shizuo's leg before trailing to the ground. It was a murmur Shizuo was likely not meant to hear, but one that reached his ears nonetheless as the raven shifted, discomfort and mortification etched into every fiber of his being. " _Oh_ , how you enjoy humiliating me."

Shizuo was in disbelief, the surprise clear in his tone as he muttered back, "Jesus Christ flea, you think I like having your dick touch me?"

Izaya bit his tongue hard to keep himself from sputtering, yet his nails dug red crescents into Shizuo's flesh. "Could you at least _speak_ with a little more tact?"

"And _how_ exactly was I going to be more tactful with what I said?" He didn't feel the raven carving into his back, nor the tiny trails of blood that followed along with it, but he didn't miss how the other grew tense, his wiry frame clearly betraying his discomposure. Indeed, he was quite discomforted with it too, but he tried to bear with it. They'd be here for sixteen hours, and while it probably wouldn't get any better, it shouldn't stay unbearable for too long.

They lapsed into tense silence after that, one that gradually loosened as Izaya uncoiled, allowing his fatigue to sink in and have him drift into an intermittent sleep.

* * *

16:00.

Some people say that fate and destiny are real, and others say that they have our own, absolute, free will. Some people will want to say that their choices are already made for them - how fate attaches its strings to their body and dangles them to their end goal - their destination in life.

Shizuo wondered just what the hell kind of fate would be set in stone for him if all choices made by him were moot. Was he a fatalist? If one asked him that question, he wouldn't know how to answer. Good guys don't always prosper in the end, and sometimes, the bad guys win. One can read children's stories to kids, and they'd be happy that the brave knight saves the princess, but real life is much gloomier and darker, muddier and greyer than the black and white of fables.

15:00.

He served as a person of many, of hundreds of thousands, that were subject to a fate similar to his. A gruesome and abrupt end to what was once a half-decent life that was led by a twenty-something-year-old Japanese male, and another twenty-something-year-old Japanese male. It was funny - how everything sounds so similar when one put people into such broad tags, like humans. Everyone is a 'human.' Even the lowest of scum and the most virtuous of saints. The ones who kidnapped him and Izaya? They were human, too. Cruel, twisted, morbid, and psychopathic, they nonetheless are of the same race shared by so many other people.

Does that mean they're worthy of forgiveness? To Shizuo, if he ever saw the face of who did all of this, he would most certainly tear them apart to such an extent they would be rendered a bloody smear across the floor, so the answer would be a clear no. But while revenge fantasies may be nice, it would be like trying to push water uphill with a rake; a waste of time and something that would not solve anything.

And what about Izaya? The man in his grasp who was missing a leg and what was practically an eye, he was human too. Born human, with human traits, though with a personality so 'inhuman' some people would doubt that claim, but so undoubtedly concealing the same emotions and traits shared with some seven billion people on planet Earth, it can't be dismissed. With having the same emotions came the same weaknesses. Except Izaya simply isolated those weaknesses so far away that they were practically in Pandora's box.

14:00.

Shizuo was not an armchair psychologist. He could read people well enough, but not amazingly, and so he wasn't always right in those sorts of regards, often making misjudgments in the process. Someone like Izaya, however, was an oddball, an exception. At times he was incomprehensible, and at other times he was so easily seen through that it was appalling.

The raven knew about the feeling of love. That much was certain, yet his idea of love was corrupted, a convoluted facsimile of what it really meant. He had never experienced it, only his twisted image of 'love for humanity' that was applied constantly, seeping into every word that left his mouth as he ruined Shizuo's life, or sowed chaos amongst the residents of Ikebukuro, or…

Never, however, had he seen Izaya be quiet for longer than ten seconds - the only exception would be if they were punished by Simon for making a ruckus in his restaurant, and that the only silence that was ever shared was during the time while they both ate food - without having something up his sleeve. Never had he seen Izaya settle down for once in his life and do normal people things, like have conversations, talk, laugh in genuinity, share jokes, or anything like it.

… Apart from that one time they had fish, which, in retrospect, Shizuo found just a bit strange, but maybe it was just another thing Izaya would have used to prod at him had it not been for what happened.

13:00.

Eleven hours had passed. He wondered just how the hell Izaya carried him for so long, albeit at the cost of practically all the skin on his actual foot and a good deal of blood. Had it not been for that, well… he'd have been stuck who-knows-how far down into the abyss, just to starve to death in a damp pitch blackness, where attempting to break out would have the cave collapse above him. He was at least grateful for that. Not the way he wanted to go out.

His feet were starting to get a little sore, but it was nothing too bad. The sandpaper grated his nerves a little, but he had long since gotten used to it, and the desensitization to touch helped alleviate it. Doing this same motion over and over and over again gave him the slightest hint of tiredness, but thankfully his stamina was nigh-infinite.

12:00. Halfway there.

Shizuo's mind wandered back to Izaya, seeing as how he was both the closest thing to him and the fact that he had nothing else to think about. He thought of when Izaya got drunk while he only got buzzed, and the answers that the raven had given. It was strange, seeing how Izaya became more and more carefree and whimsical while still managing to retain some of his sharpness, but it was a gateway into what he was like under the many different masks he wore. The raven didn't actively try to piss him off, and the answers he gave…

' _Do you love me?_ '

Then Izaya laughed. ' _I hate drinking._ '

Perhaps things were a bit different when he was sober, but one doesn't become a completely different person when they're drunk, especially when Izaya was considered. He didn't want to admit it, but there was a sliver of truth to the drunken man's words. The way Izaya acted once he told him all of that, the way in how quickly he became angry and lost his composure.

Maybe it's true after all. He did all the things that no one would ever do for Izaya. He admitted it himself.

 _Maybe… maybe Izaya-_

The raven convulsed in his arms, jerking awake in the same manner one did when they felt as though they were falling. His head lifted from where it rested on the crook of his neck, eyes peering blearily up at Shizuo in confusion. His foot twitched, perhaps in remembrance of the pain it endured, yet now the sole was crusted over with dry blood intermingled with flecks of grit. All at once, his irises cleared, going from a muted shade of brown to that rich rustic red, before the color dipped underneath a fringe of dark lashes. His head lolled back onto the other's shoulder as a quiet groan of exasperation escaping his lips. "What are you thinking about?"

Shizuo's train of thought violently came to a halt as he blinked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "I'm thinking about how the hell you slept so little."

"Shizu-chan's shoulder doesn't make for the best pillow." His words were slurring slightly, as though he were still caught between wakefulness and sleep, but the sharpness of his eyes indicated otherwise. Abruptly, he giggled, more out of genuine amusement than mockery. With their closeness, the other could easily feel the laughs that rattled his rib cage, hear it disconcertingly close to his ear, feel the ebb and flow of air leaving the raven's mouth.

The brunette took a moment to readjust, having Izaya's breath stick to his skin unnerving him just slightly. "What's so funny?" He quietly asked as a crease formed between his brows, mildly irritated despite being a little bit curious.

"Ever thought there would come a day that _I_ would be sleeping on _your_ shoulder, fully conscious of the fact that I am?" Izaya tilted his head to the other side, away from the musky fragrance clinging to Shizuo's neck. "It wasn't too long ago that you were trying to throw convenience store trash cans at me, and I was trying to carve out your stomach."

Shizuo huffed. "What I'd give to have that back…"

"Oh~ I thought you'd be enjoying this. You always said you'd be happy if I left you alone. I'd gladly do so now."

"This might just be the complete and total _opposite_ of leaving me alone."

Another laugh, one that was more disquieting than the last in its lack of derision, but it was mercifully directed away from him. "I am not attempting to carve out your stomach," he amended.

Shizuo rolled his eyes. If he's not trying to carve out his stomach then the ex-blond isn't trying to beat his head in. Correct, but still. "'I cannot tell a lie.' Yeah, and you would if I gave you a knife."

"No," he muttered, almost in dismay and yearning. "I wouldn't."

There was something different in having the raven's warmth this close, considering how the past times they were like this involved carrying him on his shoulder and back. With the proximity, the scent that was decidedly _Izaya_ was free to waft up into his nose, intermingling with the bitter tang of blood and antiseptics. Such a smell was always so far away and on the chase, but so close up, it was different, like he entered a separate bubble of atmosphere - one that he… admittedly, it was a step up from cold metal and sandpaper.

Shizuo chewed on his lip for a while, then bothered himself with a response. "Can't believe I actually trust you on that one."

"You told me that I said that I didn't want to kill you anymore," he drawled, turning his gaze back to the other. His expression was carefully blank, voice tinted with inquisitiveness. With composure regained, he freely trod on territory that had him slipping and falling before, as if to show that whatever reaction he originally had was insubstantial, that his nonchalance now was how he truly felt all along. "Hypocritical of you not to believe it yet try to force _me_ to."

Izaya was right. To an extent. He was certainly a hypocrite, but so was the raven, who proved it time and time again. "Never said carving up my stomach would kill me," he commented.

"But apparently, I _love_ you." There it was - that caustic bite, that sliver of teeth revealed behind lips pulled back in a smirk, that lazy half-lidding of eyes that indicated he was back. "Who would so severely maim the person they love?"

The response was a face of flat annoyance. "I don't know Izaya," he retorted sarcastically, "Who would?" The answer he was expecting was 'Nobody, you brute,' but he'd wait.

And Izaya didn't miss a beat, speaking with the casual indifference of one who didn't appreciate the situation he was in. "Perhaps whoever birthed you."

Immediately, red flags were sent off, and his volatile anger rose tremendously before he barely managed to quell it right before it broke past the boiling point. "Nice, Izaya. Real nice. You're just a _charmer_ , you know?" His voice dripped with toxic amounts of scorn that it was evident how riled up he was.

The raven hit a sore spot, and he downright _basked_ in it, lavishing every second of undisputed victory and made it known to the other. "Ah, so it's working. I was wondering about that." It was small moments like these did Izaya truly feel a semblance of normalcy, and yet he would be reminded of his impaired vision, of his frail wrists and phantom leg. A bitterness would form at the back of his tongue then, one that he had grown accustomed to swallowing down and brushing aside.

"This is just between _you_ ," he emphasized by squeezing the raven slightly, "And _me._ " His eyes narrowed as his frown deepened. "Don't fucking mention anyone else."

That movement, the pressure of Shizuo's arm on the back of his legs, was enough to remind him of just how much the brute thought he was in control of the situation. The corner of his lips quivered in suppressed irritation. "'Between you and me,'" he scoffed, forearms tightening. "Tell me, what is it that inspired you into thinking I was worthy of your help?"

"Because if I let you die then that'd mark me as a monster. That's the one mentality that's kept me from ripping your worthless flea ass apart whenever I wanted to." His eyes filled with a rapidly expanding fire that grew from a darkness in his eyes to a quake in his bones. "You were _never_ worthy of saving, Izaya. Had it been between anyone else, had it been between two normal people, one would have been dead five minutes in, and their body would be wasting away in some part of the island." Rage wrapped itself around him like a tourniquet, a substance flowing through his veins that charged his emotions like electricity to a light-bulb. He was it, and it was he, as it always was. "You think you're some sort of high-class king that deserves to be treated like a god? Well _HERE WE ARE NOW!_ "

Shizuo hadn't even noticed how the tracks had stopped, or how the timer flashed from blue to red at 11:11 as Izaya involuntarily ducked his chin to the side in response to being subjected to Shizuo's volume. "Maybe I'm a monster, but there's something that _I_ have that _you_ don't, and you never will." Just as Izaya wanted, he would get to see a face so contorted in fury and a tone not unlike that of a savage beast, experience it from a seat that couldn't get any closer. His grip went far beyond discomfort and into keen pain. "No one loves you, and no one ever **will**."

Bleakness was crawling into Izaya's skull, one that was kept at bay through steady albeit constricted inhales, trying to tune it all out - everything from the pressure in his brain that eroded his focus to the flow of thoughts he forcefully diverted. The silence and passage of time only seemed to fan it, but his attention was drawn towards the sudden stillness. "Shizu-"

"Shut the _fuck_ up before I _make_ you shut the fuck up. Close your stupid mouth for five goddamn minutes."

He twisted to the side, pushing away from Shizuo's chest and craning his neck towards the screen.

Shizuo's grasp lightened up as he snarled, "You wanna fall? I'm _not_ stopping you this time."

"Could you _listen-_ "

Before Izaya had a chance to complete his sentence, the floor beneath them jerked into motion once more, accelerating dizzyingly fast. Weary due to the wave of anger that broiled to the surface, Shizuo didn't manage to respond on time as he was thrown backwards. His naked back slammed against the wall while Izaya was spared mercy; and then the brunette's body turned over began to spin, falling down and down and down as they were consumed by darkness.


End file.
